This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at |http : //books . google . com/
■^.
^jw lyiS: (o'tr
^ ■::. 7 19C5
l^arbarti College ittirarg
FROM THE BEC^UEST OF
JAMES WALKER, D.D., LL.D.,
(Class of X814)
FORMER PRESIDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE;
' Preference being given to works in the Intellectual
and Moral Sciences."
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
\.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
. ^^ ^^ ///jt: i-^e
'■"^ ^ The Religion of Science Library
' §:
Number 27 ,r^^,-„„„ „ , Price, 25c
Bi-Monthly SEPTEMBER, 1897 YearJf, $1.50
Entered at the Chicago Post Office as Second Class Mail Matter.
MARTIN LUTHER
BY
QUSTAV FREYTAG
CHICAGO
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
LONDON : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trabner & Co.
1897
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Digitized by VjOOQIC
MARTIN LUTHER
Digitized by VjOOQIC
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
The Lost Manuscript. A Novel. Aathorised Trans-
lation. 2 vols. 953 pp. Extra clothe gilt top,
boxed, $4. — In one volume, cloth, $1. Paper,
75 cents.
Martin Luther. Illustrated cloth edition. Large
8vo. $1.
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
o
MARTIN LUTHER
GUSTAV FREYTAG
TRAMSLATBD BY
HENRY E. O. HEINEMANN
DBS CHRISTBN HBKZ AUP KOSBN GBHT.
WBNN'S If ITTBN VNTBRM KRBUZB STBHT.
— LUTHBR'S If OTTO.
CHICAGO
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
(London : Kbgan Paul. Tbbnch, Trubbnbr & co.)
1897
Digitized by VjOOQIC
'/\
^ /y/j-.^e
\
i^^ . ... <\
I
Tramslation Coptughtbd by
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1896
Digitized by VjOOQIC
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Reformer i
Lather's Father ... 5
The Spirit of the Age ... 8
The Traffic in Indalgences 13
Lather the Monk 25
The Raptare with the Charch 30
The Conflict 35
Battles Within and Battles Without 42
Accepting the Sammons 47
The Diet of Worms 51
The Hero of the Nation 62
The Oatlaw of the Wartburg 72
A Contemporary's Description of Lather 77
Problems and Tasks 87
Political and Social Complications 96
Lather's Marriage loi
Luther's Private Life 108
Struggles with the Devil 118
The Tragic Element in Luther's Life 122
A Letter of Luther's 128
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
MARTIN LUTHER.
THE REFORMER.
MANY well-meaning men still cherish regret that
certain great evils of their old Church led to the
great schism of the Reformation. Even the enlight-
ened Catholic still looks upon Luther and Zwingli sim-
ply as zealous heretics whose wrath caused ecclesiast-
ical dissensions. Such a view should be abandoned.
All Christian denominations have good reason to be
grateful to Luther, for to him they owe a purified faith
which satisfies the heart and soul and enriches their
lives. The heretic of Wittenberg is a reformer for the
Catholic quite as much as for the Protestant. Not
only because in the struggle with him the teachers of
the Catholic Church outgrew their ancient scholasti-
cism and fought for their sacraments with new weap-
ons taken from his language, culture, and moral
worth ; nor only for the reason that he had shattered
into, fragments the Church of the Middle Ages, and
compelled his enemies in the Council of Trent to erect
an apparently new and more solid structure within the
old forms and dimensions ; but still more because he
Digitized by VjOOQIC
)
2 MARTIN LUTHER.
gave such powerful expression to the common founda-
tion of all Christian creeds, to human bravery, piety,
sincerity, and heartiness, that in religion and language,
in civil order and morality, ia the bent of the popular
soul, in science and poetry, a great deal of his nature is
even now immanent in us and shared by all Teutonic
races to-day. Some of those things which in his stub-
born fights Luther defended against both Reformed
and Catholics, have been condemned by the freer in-
telligence of th« present age. His doctrine, wrung
from a passionate, high-strung, reverential soul in
convulsive struggles, failed, in some not uninportant
particulars, to hit the right point ; at times he was
harsh, unjust, even cruel towards his adversaries ; but
such things should no longer perplex us, for all the
limitations of his nature and culture are overwhelmed
by the wealth of bliss which flowed from his great
heart into the life of mankind.
Nevertheless, we are told, he should not have fal-
len away from the Church ; his act divided Christen-
dom into two camps, and, with varjring battle-cries,
the old quarrel lasts down into our own days. Those
who think thus may assert with equal justice that the
holy, mystical apostasy from Judaism was not neces-
sary; why did not the Apostles reform the venerable
high-priesthood of Zion? They may maintain that the
Englishman Hampden would have done better to pay
the ship-money and instruct the Stuarts peaceably;
that the Prince of Orange committed a crime when he
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE REFORMER. 3
refused to lay his head and sword, like Egmont, into
the hands of Alva ; that Washington was a traitor be-
cause he did not surrender himself and his army to
the English. They may condemn as a crime every-
thing great and new in thought and life that ever
broke forth in the struggle against the old.
To few mortals was it given to exercise so great
an influence upon both their contemporaries and pos-
terity. But, like every great human life, that of Lu-
ther impresses the beholder like an overwhelming
tragedy if the chief points of it are placed side by
side. It appears tripartite, like the careers of all he-
roes of history who were permitted to reach the ful-
ness of their lives. In the beginning, the personality
of the man is unfolding, and we see him powerfully
controlled by the forces of his environments. Even
incompatible opposites are sought to be assimilated,
but in the inmost core of his nature, thoughts and con-
victions gradually harden into resolution ; a sudden
deed flashes forth, the individual enters on the strug-
gle with the world. Then follows another period of
vigorous activity, rapid development, great conquests.
The influence of the one upon the many extends more
and more, his might draws the nation into his course,
he becomes her hero, her standard, and the vitality of
millions appears concentrated in one man. But the
spirit of a nation will not, for any length of time, tol-
erate the exclusive control of one single individual.
However great the force, however lofty the aims, the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
4 MARTIN LUTHER.
life, the power, and the wants of the nation are more
manifold. The everlasting conflict between the man
and the people appears. The soul even of the people
is finite, and, in the sight of the infinite, a limited per-
sonality, but as compared to the individual it appears
boundless. The man is compelled by the logical se-
quence of his thoughts and actions, all the spirits of
his own deeds force him into a rigidly confined course.
The soul of the nation, however, requires for its life
incompatible opposites and a ceaseless working in the
most divergent directions. Many things which the
individual could not receive within his own nature
arise to do battle against him. The reaction of the
world sets in — feebly at first, from various sides, in
different lines of thought, with little justice, then more
strongly and with ever-growing success. At last, the
spiritual kernel of the individual life is confined within
a school — his school ; it is crystallised into a partic-
ular element of the culture of the nation. Ever is the
closing part of a great life filled with secret resigna-
tion, bitterness, and silent suffering.
Thus with Luther. The first of these periods ex-
tended down to the day when he published the theses,
the second to his return from the Wartburg, the third
to his death and the beginning of the Smalkald war.
The author of these pages does not intend to de-
scribe Luther's life, but only to tell briefly how he
grew and what he was. Many things about him ap-
pear strange and uncouth, when viewed at a distance.
,^igitized by VjOOQ IC
LUTHER'S FATHER. 5
but his picture has the remarkable quality of becom-
ing bigger and more lovable the closer it is approached.
And it would, from beginning to end, fill a good biog-
rapher with admiration, sympathy, and also some good
humor.
LUTHER'S FATHER.
Luther rose from the great fountain of all national
/ strength, the free peasantry. From ^oehra, a village
in the mountain forests of Thuringia, where his rela-
tions filled half the surrounding country, his father
moved northward into the Mansfeld region to engage
in mining.
His father, Hans Luther, was short of stature,
solid and strong, resolute, and gifted with an unusual
/ amount of common sense, and had, after a hard strug-
gle, acquired a fair competency. He ruled strictly in
/ his house. Even late in life Luther remembered rue-
fully the severe punishments he suffered as a boy, and
the pain they inflicted on his tender child's heart.
Old Hans Luther maintained some influence over
the life of his son down to the time of his death in
1530. When, at the age of twenty- two years, Martin
secretly entered a monastery, the old man's anger was
violent, for he had thought of providing for his son by
a good marriage. And when, at last, friends suc-
ceeded in reconciling the irate father, when he con-
fronted his son, who pleaded that a terrible appari-
tion had compelled him to the secret vow to enter a
Digitized by VjOOQIC
6 MARTIN LXTTHER.
monastery, the father broke out into the petulant
words : " May God grant, that it was not a cheat or
a spectre sent by the Devil."
He still further tore the heart of the monk by the
angry question: *'You thought to obey the bidding
of God when you took orders, did you not also hear
that children should obey their parents ? " The sting
of the words rankled deeply in the heart of the son.
And many years later, when he lived on the Wart-
burg, expelled from the Church, outlawed by the Em-
peror, he wrote to his father the pathetic words :
" Do you still wish to take me from the monkish life?
You are still my father ; I am still your son ; on your
side is the divine commandment and the power, on
mine is human wrong-doing. And lo, that you might
not boast before God, He anticipated you. He took
me out Himself ! " From that time, the old man felt
as if his son had been given back to him. Old Hans
at one time calculated on a grandson for whom he
wanted to work. He reverted to that idea stubbornly,
disregarding the rest of the world. Before long he
urged his son to marry, and his persuasion was not
the least powerful influence to which Luther yielded.
And when the father, having reached a ripe old age
and the honor of a councilman of Mansfeld, was lying
on his death-bed and the minister, bending over the
man who was passing away, asked if he would die in
the purified faith on Christ and the Holy Gospel, old
Hans gathered his strength for the last time and said,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
LUTHER'S FATHER. 7
curtly: "A scoundrel who does not believe in it I"
Luther, in telling about it in later years, was wont to
add admiringly: "He was a man of the good old
time."
The son received the news of his father's death in
the fortress of Coburg. Gazing at the letter in which
his wife had enclosed the picture of his youngest
daughter, Magdalen, he spoke to his companions only
the brief words: "Well, my father is dead, too,"
then rising and taking his psalter, he went to his
chamber and prayed and wept so hard that, as the
faithful Veit Dietrich reports, his head was dull the
next day — but he came forth with his mind composed.
The same day he wrote to Melanchthon with much
emotion about the cordial affection of his father and
his intimate intercourse with him. " Never have I de-
spised death so much as to-day. So many times do
we die before we finally die. Now I am the oldest of
my race and I have a right to follow him."
From such a father the son received for his life
those qualities which remained the foundation of his
nature — truthfulness, persevering will, a sincere con-
fidence in, and prudent treatment of, men and affairs.
Rough was his infancy, much that was harsh did he
experience in the Latin school and as a chorister, but
he also met with kindness and love, especially in the
house of Frau Cotta. And Luther retained that which
is more easily preserved in the smaller circles of life,
a heart full of faith in the goodness of human nature
Digitized by VjOOQIC
MARTIN LUTHER.
and of reverence for all that is great on this earth. At
the University of Erfurt his father was able to assist
him more liberally ; he felt the vigor of youth and was
a merry companion with harp and song.
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE.
The corruption of the world had waxed huge, the
oppression of the poor was beyond endurance, gross
sensuality held sway, clergy and laity were dominated
by insatiable greed. Who would punish the young
squire for ill-treating the peasant? Who protect the
poor citizen against the powerful family of the rich
councilman? Hard was the toil of the man of the peo-
ple from morning till night, through winter and sum-
mer. There was the plague, failure of crops, and fam-
ine. Inscrutable the order of the world, and a dearth
of love in the life on earth. Salvation from misery
was in God alone. Before Him all the things of the
earth were petty and as naught ; Emperor and Pope
and the wisdom of man were transient as the flowers
of the fields. If God was merciful he could save man
from the troubles of this life and compensate him by
everlasting bliss for his sufferings here below. But
how could such grace be won? What virtue of weak
humanity durst hope to earn the infinite treasure of
divine favor? Man was damned from the time of
Adam to will the good and work the evil. ,.Vain was
his best virtue ; he was cursed with original sin, and
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE SPIRIT OP THE AGE. 9
it was through ao merit of his own if God showed him
mercy.
In such wise the human heart wrestled in anguish
in those days. But forth from the sacred documents
of the Scripture, which were to the people as a dark
J legend, there sounded from afar the word: ''Christ
' is Love." The ruling Church knew little of such love.
In its creed God stood far removed from the human
soul, the image of Him on the Cross was hidden be-
hind countless saints and blessed martyrs, all of whom
were needed to intercede with the wrathful God. Yet
the nature of the Teuton fervently demanded a cor-
dial relation with the Almighty, he yearned with irre-
pressible force to win the love of God. He who gave
himself to penance, wrestling in ardent prayer and
without cessation for the love of God, could feel the
highest happiness in merging, yielding himself to God
while on earth, and had the hope of bliss in Heaven.
But the hierarchy no longer taught individual en-
deavor for the grace of God. The Pope claimed to
be the administrator of the inexhaustible deserts of
Christ, and the Church taught that the prayers of the
saints for sinful humanity had helped to pile up an
infinite treasure of good works, prayers, fasts, and
penances for the good of others, all of which treasures
were administered by the Pope, who could give of
them to whomsoever he wished to free from sin. And,
likewise, if a number of the faithful would associate
themselves together in a pious society, the Pope could
Digitized by VjOOQIC
lO UARUM LUTHER.
grant to such a brotherhood the dispensation that the
deserts of the saints and the surplus of pious devo-
tional works, prayers, masses, pilgrimages, penances,
donations, might pass from one to another.
Thus there arose, under the patronage of mediat-
ing saints, the pious brotherhoods in which associa-
tion could effect that which was impossible for the
weak individual. Their number was great. As late
as 1530 Luther complains that they are innumerable.
How crude and wretched was their mechanism may
be shown by an example, selecting the brotherhood of
the 11,000 virgins, called St. Ursula's Ship, of which
Prince -Elector Frederick the Wise was a founder
and charter member. According to its constitution,
this society had collected in spiritual treasures that
were to help the brethren in acquiring eternal bliss,
the following articles : 6,455 masses, 3,550 full psal-
ters, 200,000 rosaries, 200,000 TeDcums, 1,600 Gloria
in excelsis Deo ; furthermore, 11,000 prayers for the
patroness St. Ursula, and 630 times 11,000 Paternosters
z.vAAve'Marias ; also, for the knights, 50 times 10,000
Paternosters and Ave-Marias^ etc. The entire power
of this treasure for salvation was for the benefit of the
members of the brotherhood. Many spiritual institu-
tions and private individuals had earned especial merit
by large contributions to the treasure of prayers. Upon
the reorganisation of the society. Prince- Elector Fred-
erick donated a fine silver Ursula. A layman earned
membership if, in the course of his life, he once said
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
TH& SPIRIT OF tnt AG£. 11
1 1 , ooo Paternosters and Ave- Marias. If he spoke thirty-
two a day he earned it in a year ; if sixteen, in two
years \ if eight, in four years. If one was prevented
from absolving this quantity of prayer by marriage,
business concerns, or illness, he could join by having
eleven masses read for himself, etc. Still, this fra-
ternity was one of the best, for the members were not
required to pay cash ; it was meant to be a society of
poor people who wanted to help one another to Heaven
by praying. And yet, after all is said, it cannot be
denied that these pious societies, in the beginning of
the sixteenth century, touched the soul more nearly
than an3rthing else that the decaying Church of the
Middle Ages offered to the people. On the other hand,
the traffic in pardons and indulgences was the foulest
spot on the sick body of the Church. In their capa-
city as conservators of the accumulated infinite treas-
ures of Christ's merits, the Popes sold orders on this
treasury to the faithful for money. True, the better
idea that even the Pope could not really forgive sins,
but only remit the penance prescribed by the Church,
never quite disappeared in the Church itself. But
those who thus taught, isolated men of the universi-
ties or candid ministers of scattered congregations,
did well to take care not to develop their teachings
into open contradiction against the business of the
traffickers in pardons. For what was the true doc-
trine of the Church to the Popes of the fifteenth cen-
tury, who, almost without exception, were atrocious
Digitized by VjOOQIC
ta MARTIN LUTHER.
villains and unbelieving heathens? Woe to him who
doubted that the Popes had the right to part him from
God, to open or close to him the gates of Heaven! It
/Vas money they demanded without end, money for
, women and boys, for their children and relations, for
their princely households. And there prevailed an
awful community of self-interest between themselves,
the bishops, and the fanatical party in the begging
fraternities. Nothing made Huss of Hussinetz so in-
sufferable as his fight against pardons and indulgences.
The doctrine of repentance and grace drove the great
Wessel from Paris into an unhappy exile, and it was
pardon-mongering monks that allowed the venerable
Johannes Vesalia to die in the dungeon of the monas-
tery at Mayence, him who first uttered the great words,
"Wherefore should I believe that which I know?"
It is well known how rankly the traffic in pardons
and indulgences grew early in the sixteenth century
and how shamelessly the infamous swindle was car-
ried on. When Tetzel entered a city with his box he
rode with a great suite of monks and priests, a well-
fed, haughty Dominican. The bells were tolled, clergy
and laity went reverently to meet him and conducted
him to the church. There, in the nave, his great red
cross was erected with the wreath of thorns and the
nail holes, and sometimes the faithful people were fa-
vored with the sight of the red blood of the crucified
Christ moving on the cross. Next to the wreath were
the flags of the Church bearing the coat-of-arms of the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE TRAFFIC IN INDULGENCES. 1 3
Pope with the threefold crown ; before the cross stood
the notorious chest strongly enforced with iron bands ;
on one side a pulpit on which the monk with rude
eloquence explained the miraculous power of his indul-
gences and exhibited a great parchment of the Pope
from which dangled many seals ; on the other side the
money table with blank pardons, writing material, and
money baskets, and thfre it was that the clerical as-
sistants sold eternal bliss to the people crowding
around.
The evils in the Church were without number;
against all of them an outraged moral sense revolted,
but the centre of the whole movement was the fight
against the means of grace which made a loathsome
mockery of the needs of the popular heart And the
appearance of so many reformers will be understood
aright only if it is looked upon as a reaction of the
heart against insincerity, heartlessness, and continued
outrage upon the holiest ideals.
THE TRAFFIC IN INDULGENCES.
Throughout Northern Europe opposition was stir-
ring. But the man was not yet found who was des-
tined to feel in fearful, long-continued struggle within
his own soul all the sufferings and all the yearnings of
the people, in order to become the leader in whom
they saw with enthusiasm the embodiment of their own
inmost nature. We know little of the struggles which
Digitized by VjOOQIC
14 MARTIN LUTHER.
Luther underwent prior to the time when he entered
the monastery. They hardened his convictions until
his soul was matured and ready to speak out boldly.
But it is probably fair to judge by analogy^ and hap-
pily we have direct information of an experience which
was doubtless similar to that of Luther and typical
of what was passing, with greater or less clearness of
insight, in the popular mind in general.
Frederick Mecum, latinised Myconius, was the son
of a respectable citizen of Lichtenfels, in Upper Fran-
conia, born in 1491. At the age of thirteen years he
was sent to the Latin school of the then rising moun-
tain city of Annaberg. He there experienced what is
here told in his own words, and, in 1510, a youth of
nineteen years, went into a monastery. Being a Fran-
ciscan, he was one of the earliest, most zealous and
loyal adherents of the professors of Wittenberg. He
left the order, became a preacher of the Reformed
Church in Thuringia, finally parson and overseer at
Gotha, where he carried the Reformation through and
died in 1546.
The relation of Myconius to Luther was curious.
He not only was a modest and intimate friend of the
latter's in many relations of private life, but his friend-
ship with Luther was filled until death with a poetic
charm that transfigured his entire life. In the most
fateful time of his youth, seven years before Luther
began the Reformation, the image of the great man
appeared to him in a dream and calmed the doubts of
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE TRAFFIC IN INDULGENCES. 1 5
his agitated heart, and it was in the transfiguration of
that dream that the faithful, pious scholar thenceforth
saw his great friend at all hours.
Still another circumstance lends peculiar interest
to the personality of Myconius. Although the gentle,
delicately organised man was totally unlike his daring
friend, there is a remarkable similarity in the early
lives of the two. And many things that remain un-
known in Luther's youth are explained by what My-
conius tells of his own early years. Both were poor
scholars of a Latin school, both were driven into mon-
asteries by inward struggles and youthful enthusiasm,
both failed to find that peace which they fervently
sought, but found, instead, fresh doubts, greater strug-
gles, years of torment, of anxious uncertainty. Both
were driven to revolt by the insolent Tetzel, who in-
flamed their souls with indignation and determined
the entire direction and activity of their subsequent
lives. At last, both died in the same yeai| ^^yconius
seven weeks later than Luther, after having been, five
years before, recalled to life from a deadly illness by
a conjuring letter from Luther.
Although he published little, Frederick Myconius
left, besides theological writings, a chronicle of his
time in which his own activity and the afiairs of Gotha
are described most minutely. The dream which he
had the first night after entering the monastery is well
known and has been printed frequently. The Apostle
Paul, who then appeared as his guide, had the face
Digitized by VjOOQIC
1 6 MARTIN LUTHER.
and voice of Luther, as Myconius thought in aftex
years. This long dream is told in Latin. The intro-
ductory narrative, however, has been preserved in a
manuscript of the ducal library of Gotha in a contem-
poraneous German form. The following has been
translated from the manuscript, being shortened only
in a few places :
''Johannes Tetzel, of Pirna, in Meissen, a Domin-
ican monk, was a great crier and trader in indulgences
or pardons of the Pope of Rome. He remained, with
this purpose, for two years in the new city of Anna-
berg, and so deluded the people that they all believed
that there was na other way to gain pardon for their
sins and everlasting life than justification by our
works, which justification, he said, nevertheless was
impossible. But he said there was one way remaining,
namely, to buy it for money from the Pope of Rome,
that is, to buy the indulgence of the Pope, which, he
said, was forgiveness of sins and a sure entry into
everlasting life. Here I could tell wonder upon won-
der and incredible things about what preachings I
heard those two years at Annaberg from Tetzel. For
I attended his preaching diligently, and he preached
every day. I even could repeat his sermons to others,
with all gestures and explanations, not scoffing at
him, but being greatly in earnest. For I held all his
utterances to be oracles and divine sayings which
must be believed, and that which came from the Pope
I held as though it came from Christ himself.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE TRAFFIC IN INDULGENCES. 17
"Finally, about the time of Pentecost, in the year
of our Lord, 15 lo, he threatened to lay down the red
cross and close the gate of Heaven and extinguish the
sun, and it would never happen again that for so little
money could be had forgiveness of sins and everlast-
ing life. Yea, it was not to be hoped that so long as
the world stood, such graciousness of the Pope would
come there again. He also urged that every one
should care well for the salvation of his own soul and
those of his friends, both deceased and living, for now
had come the day of salvation and the pleasing time.
And he said : ' Let no one neglect his own salvation,
for unless you have the letters of the Pope you can-
not be absolved and pronounced free by any man from
many sins and ''reserved cases."* On the gates and
the walls of the church were publicly posted printed
letters in which it was stated that in order to give the
people a testimonial of gratitude for its devotion,
thenceforth the letters of pardon and complete power
should not be sold so high as in the beginning, and
at the end of the letter, at the bottom, was written :
^Pauperibus dentur gratis * — to the poor the letters of
pardon should be given for nothing, without money,
for the sake of God.
'^Thereupon I began to bargain with the commis-
sioners of this traffic in pardons, but, in truth, I was
moved and impelled thereto by the Holy Ghost, al-
though I knew not, at the time, what I did.
"My dear father taught me in my childhood the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
l8 MARTIN LUTHER.
Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the
Christian Faith, and compelled me to pray at all
times. For he said we had everything from God
alone, gratis, for nothing, and He would govern and
lead us if we prayed diligently. Of the indulgences
and Roman pardons, he said they were only nets with
which money was filched and taken out of the pockets
of the simple-minded, and men could surely not buy
or bring about forgiveness of sins and everlasting life
with money. But the priests and clergy became angry
and scolded when such things were said. Since, then,
I heard nothing in the sermons every day but the
great glory of the pardons, I remained in doubt which
to believe more, my dear father or the priests as teach-
ers of the Church. I stood in doubt, but still I believed
more the priests than the instructions of my father.
But one thing I would not allow, that the forgiveness
of sins could not be obtained except when it was
bought with money, particularly by the poor. Hence
I was pleased wonderfully with the clause at the end
of the Pope's letter, ^ Pauperibus gratis dentur propter
Deum, *
"And when, three days later, they wanted to lay
down the cross with great pomp and hew down the
steps and ladders to Heaven, the spirit moved me that
I went to the commissioners and asked them for let-
ters forgiving my sins • from mercy for the poor. * I
said I was a sinner and poor and required pardon for
my sins given as a matter of grace. The second day.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE TRAFFIC IN INDULGENCES. I9
about the time of vespers, I entered the house of Hans
Pflock, where Tetzel was, together with the confessors
and throngs of priests, and I addressed them in the
Latin tongue and asked them to allow me, a pauper,
according to the order of the Pope's letter, to beg ab-
solution of all my sins free of charge and for God's
sake, etiam nullo casu reservato^ without reservation of
a single case, and that they should give me literas tes-
timoniaUs of the Pope, or testimony in writing. The
priests were astonished at my Latin speech, for that
was a rare thing in those days, especially among young
boys, and they went from the room into the chamber
adjoining, where the commissioner, Tetzel, was. They
announced my request and also begged for me that
he might give me the letters of pardon without charge.
At last, after a long consultation, they return and
bring me this answer : < Dear son, we have submitted
your prayer to the commissioner with diligence, and
he admits he would gladly grant your prayer, but he
cannot, and, though he would, the concession would
be null and void. For he showed us that it was writ-
ten clearly in the Pope's letter that those will surely
share in the ample and gracious indulgences and
treasures of the church and the deserts of Christ qut
porrigerent manum adjutricem, who help with the hand,
that is, who give money.' And they said all that in
German words, for there was not one among them
who could have spoken three words with me in Latin.
^<0n the other hand, I prayed again, and proved
Digitized by VjOOQIC
aO MARTIN LUTHEIU
from the published letter of the Pope that the Holy
Father, the Pope, commanded that such letters be
given to the poor free of charge, for God's sake, and
especially as there was added ad mandatem domini
papae propriuniy i. e., by the Lord, the Pope's, own
command.
*'So they go in again and beg the proud, haughty
monk to grant my prayer and dismiss me with the
pardon, as I was a prudent and eloquent youth and
worthy that something special above others be done
for me. But they come out again and once more
bring the answer, ^de tnanu auxiliatrice^^ of the helping
hand, which alone was powerful for a holy pardon.
But I remain firm, and say that they do me, a pauper,
wrong ; whom neither God nor the Pope wanted to
exclude from grace, him they rejected for the sake of
a few pennies which I did not have. Then began a
dispute. I was asked to give a small amount, that
the helping hand might not be wanting, if it was but
a groat. I said: 'I have not even that; I am poor.*
Finally, it came down to this, that I should give but
six pennies. I again replied that I had not a single
penny. They urged me and spoke among themselves.
At last I heard that they were anxious about two
things : first, they should by no means let me depart
without a letter of pardon, for it might be a trick de-
vised by some one else and might lead to evil con-
sequences, since it was written clearly in the Pope's
Wtter that it should be given to the poor free of charge,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE TRAFFIC IN INDULGENCES. 21
Nevertheless, something should be taken from me that
the others might not hear that the letters of pardon
were given for nothing, so that the whole lot of stu-
dents and beggars would come and all would want
their letters free. They need not have had any care
about that, for the poor beggars sought more for bread
to still their hunger.
"After having held their council, they come to me
again, and one gives me six pennies, that I should
give them to the commissioner. By this contribution
I would also be a builder of the church of St. Peter
at Rome, also a slayer of the Turk, and would have a
share in the grace of Christ and the indulgence. But
I said freely, being moved by the spirit, if I wanted
to buy indulgences and pardons for money, I might
sell a book and buy them with my own money. But I
wanted to have them given freely, for God's sake, or
the commissioners should account before God for
having neglected and trifled away the salvation of my
soul on account of six pennies, since both God and
the Pope wanted my soul to attain forgiveness of all
my sins, freely, out of His grace. This I said, and
knew not, in truth, how it stood with the letters of
pardon.
<<At last, after a long talk, the priests asked me
who sent me to them and who trained me to discuss
such things with them. So I told them the whole
plain truth, how it was that I was admonished or in-
duced by no man nor persuaded by any adviser, but
Digitized by VjOOQIC
22 MARTIN LUTHER.
that I had made my prayer alone, without any man's
advice, and only trusting and confiding in the gracious
pardon of sins freely given, and that in all my life-
time I never spoke or treated with such great men.
For I was by nature timid, and if I had not been com-
pelled by the great thirst for the grace of God I should
not have dared such a great thing or mingled with
such persons and asked such a thing of them. Then
the letters were promised again, but so that I should
buy them at six pennies, which were to be given me
freely for my person. But I remained steadfast that
the letters of pardon should be given to me free of
charge by him who had the power to give them ; if
not, I would commend and commit the matter to God.
And thus I was dismissed by them.
"The holy thieves were, nevertheless, sad on ac-
count of this bargain. I was partly sad because I
failed to get a letter of pardon, and partly 1 was glad
that there was still One in Heaven who would forgive
the sins of the penitent sinner without money or loan,
according to the passage which I had often sung in
church : 'As I live, saith the Lord, I want not the
death of the sinner, but that he be converted and
live.' O dear Lord and God, Thou knowest that I do
not lie in this matter or invent anything out of myself.
"With all this I was so moved that as I walked
home to my lodgings I was fain to melt and dissolve
into tears. So I arrive at my lodgings, go to my
chamber and take the crucifix, which always lay on
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE TRAFFIC IN INDULGENCES. ^3
the little table in my study, and, setting it on a seat,
I drop down on the floor in front of it. I cannot here
describe it, but at that time I could feel the spirit of
prayer and of grace which Thou, O my Lord and God,
didst pour out over me. The sum of it all was this :
I prayed that Thou, dear Lord, wouldst be my father,
that Thou wouldst forgive my sins, I gave myself up
to Thee completely that Thou shouldst make of me
whatever might please Thee, and, since the priests
would not be merciful to me without money, that
Thou wouldst be my gracious God and Father.
' 'Then I felt that my whole heart was transformed;
I felt vexed at all things in the world, and it seemed
I was weary of this life. One thing only I wished, to
live for God that I might please Him. But who was
there then that might have taught me how to go about
it ? For the Word, the Life, and the Light of men
was buried throughout the world in deepest darkness
of human laws and the altogether foolish ' good works. '
About Christ they were silent ; nothing was known of
Him, or if He was remembered He was pictured to
us as a cruel, terrible j)xdge, whom His mother and
all the saints in Heaven could scarcely, with tears of
blood, conciliate and make merciful, and even so, He
would, for every mortal sin, thrust the men who did
penance into the torments of Purgatory for seven
years. The torment of Purgatory was in no wise dif-
ferent from the tortures of Hell, except that it would
Digitized by VjOOQIC
24 MARTIN LUTHER.
not last forever. But the Holy Ghost gave me hope
that God would be merciful to me.
''And then I began and counselled for some days
within myself how I might begin a changed condition
of my life. For I saw the sin of the world and the en-
tire human race ; I saw my manifold sin, which was
very great. I had also heard something of the secret
great sanctity and the pure, innocent life of the monks,
serving God day and night, separated from all the
evil life of the world, living soberly, piously, chastely,
holding mass, singing psalms, fasting and praying for-
even I had seen this apparent life, but did not know
or understand that it was the greatest idolatry and
hypocrisy.
"I communicated my counsel to my instructor,
Master Andreas Staffelstein, the supreme regent of the
school, who advised me at once to enter the Francis-
can monastery, which was being rebuilt at that time.
And, that I might not become changed in purpose by
long delay, he at once went with me personally to the
monks, praised my ability and character, and boasted
that I was the only one among his scholars who he
was confident would be a right godly man.
'' I wanted to impart my purpose to my parents
and hear their opinions, being an only son and heir.
But the monks taught me from Jerome I should leave
father and mother and not regard them, and run to
the Cross of Christ. They also adduced the saying of
Christ : ' No one is fit for the Kingdom of God who
Digitized by VjOOQIC
LUTHER THE MONK. 25
lays the hand on the plow and looks behind him.' All
these things urged and commanded that I turn monk.
I will not here speak of many bonds and ties with
which they bound and tied my conscience. For they
said I could never be saved unless I speedily accepted
and used the grace offered by God. Thereupon, being
more willing to die than to forego the grace of God
and eternal life, I at once took the vow and promised
to return to the monastery in three days and begin
the year of probation, as they call it in the monastery,
i. e., I would become a pious, devout, and God-fear-
ing monk.
<<In the year of Christ 1510, July 14, at two
o'clock in the afternoon, I entered the monastery,
accompanied by my teacher and a few of my school-
mates and some very devout matrons, whom I had
partly told the reason why I entered the holy orders.
And thus I blessed those who accompanied me to the
monastery, all, amid tears, wishing me the grace of
God and all blessings. And so I went into the mon-
astery. Dear Lord, Thou knowest that this is all true.
I sought not idleness nor care of the belly, nor the
semblance of great sanctity, but I wanted to please
Thee ; it was Thee I wanted to serve.
"Thus, at that time, I groped in great darkness."
LUTHER THE MONK.
Little is known of Luther's early life beyond this,
that he came near death, and, during a thunder-storm,
Digitized by VjOOQIC
26 MARTIN LUTHER.
"heard himself called by a terrible apparition from
Heaven. " In fear of death he vowed to enter a mon-
astery, and carried out his resolution speedily and
clandestinely.
We are justified in believing that Luther was in a
frame of mind similar to Myconius when he entered
the monastery, except that his sentiments were more
profoundly stirred, his struggles fiercer. At odds with
his father, full of terror at the thought of eternity
which he could not understand, intimidated by the
wrath of God, he entered, with almost convulsive en-
ergy, on a life of renunciation, devotion, and penance.
He found no peace. All the highest questions of life
assailed his unsupported, secluded soul with tremend-
ous force. The need of feeling himself at one with
God and the world was unusually strong and passion-
ate in him ; faith gave him only that which was unin-
telligible, bitter, repellent. To his nature the mys-
teries of the moral order of the world were of the
greatest importance. That the good were persecuted
while the bad were fortunate, that God damned the
race of men with the awful curse of sin because an
ignorant woman bit into an apple, and that, on the
other hand, the same God bore our sins with love, in-
dulgence, and patience ; that Christ on one occasion
sent away honest people with harshness, and another
time received harlots, publicans, and murderers —
"the wisdom of human reason must become foolish-
aess in the face of such things.'' At such times he
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
LUTHER THE MONK. 27
would complain to his spiritual adviser, Staupitz :
'< Dear Doctor, the Lord proceeds so horribly with
men ; who can serve Him if He strikes about Himseli
so recklessly? '^ If the answer was made, << How else
could He subdue their stubborn heads?" that intelli-
gent argument could not console the youth.
Impelled by an ardent desire to find the incompre-
hensive God, he tortured himself by the closest analy-
sis of all his thoughts and dreams. Every worldly
thought, all the impulses of youthful blood, became
to him abominable wrongs ; he began to despair of
himself ; he wrestled in endless prayer, fasted and
mortified the flesh. On one occasion, the brothers
were obliged to force an entrance to his cell, in which
he had lain for days in a condition not far removed
from insanity. The warmest sympathy moved Stau-
pitz as he looked upon these convulsive torments,
and he would attempt to comfort him by rather rude
speeches. Once, when Luther had written to him :
*'0 my sin, sin, sin ! '^ the spiritual adviser answered :
** You want to be without sin and have no real sin.
Christ is the pardon of real sins, as murdering one's
parents, etc. If Christ is to help you, you should have
a register enumerating the real sins, and not approach
Him with such trifles and doll sins and make of every
bubble a sin."
The manner in which Luther rose from his despair
decided his entire future life. The God whom he
served was at that time a God of terror ; His wrath
Digitized by VjOOQIC
28 MARTIN LUTHER.
could be appeased only by the means of grace indi-
cated by the old Church, consisting, in the foremost
place, in continual confession, regulated by endless
directions and forms that appeared vacant and frosty
to the soul. Prescribed actions and the exercise of
so-called good works did not bring to the youth a feel-
ing of real conciliation and peace of mind. At last a
word from his spiritual adviser struck him like an ar-
row: "Only that is true penance which begins by
love of God. Love of God and elevation of soul is
not the result of the means of grace taught by the
Church, but must precede them."
This thought from Tauler*s school became to the
youth the foundation of a new moral relation of the
soul to God. It was a sacred find to him. The trans-
formation of the soul itself was the principal thing.
That was the aim to strive for. From the innermost
corner of every human heart should come repentance,
penance, conciliation. He himself, and each man,
could raise himself to God. At last he surmised what
free prayer was. The place of the remote divine
power which he had been seeking in a hundred for-
mulae and childish confessions was now taken by an
all-loving protector to whom he could address himself
each hour joyfully and in tears, to whom he could
carry every complaint, every doubt, who took an un-
ceasing interest in him, cared for him, granted or re-
fused his heart-felt prayers, Himself affectionate as a
kind father. Thus he learned to pray, and how fiery
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
LUTHER THB MONK. 29
his prayers became 1 Now he lived quietly together
with the dear Lord, whom he had found at last, in
/ daily, hourly communion. Conversation with the Su-
preme Being became more intimate to him than that
with the dearest beings of this earth. When he had
poured out his whole soul before Him there would
come over him tranquillity and sacred peace, a feeling
of unutterable affection, he felt himself a part of God.
And that relation remained to him from that time to
the end of his days. He no longer needed the wide
outside paths of the old Church ; with his God in his
heart he could defy the whole world.
He began to believe that those taught a false doc-
trine who laid so much stress on works of penance
that besides them nothing remained but a cold satis-
faction and circumstantial confession. And, subse-
quently, when he learned from Melancthon that the
Greek word for ^'repentance " {MetanoicC) meant, even
linguistically, the transformation of the soul, it ap-
peared to him a wonderful revelation. On this foun-
dation rests the confident faith with which he set up
the words of the Scriptures against the ordinances of
the Church.
In such manner did Luther in the monastery grad-
ually work his way to spiritual emancipation. His
entire subsequent teaching, the fight against the
trade in pardons, his imperturbable steadfastness, his
method of interpreting the Scriptures, rest upon the
internal process by which, as a monk, he found his
Digitized by VjOOQIC
30 MARTIN LUTHER.
God. And it may well be said that with Luther's
prayers in his cell began the new era of history. Soon,
life was to lay him under the sledge-hammer to har-
den the pure metal of his soul !
THE RUPTURE WITH THE CHURCH.
It was with reluctance that Luther in 1508 ac-
cepted the professorship of dialectics at the new Uni-
versity of Wittenberg. He would have preferred to
teach that theology which even then he held to be the
true one. It is well known how in 1510 he went to
Rome on business of the order, how he remained in
the Holy City full of devotion and piety, what an
abomination were to him the heathen practices of the
Latins, the corruption of morals and worldliness of
the clergy. There it was that while reading mass his
devotion was disturbed by ribald jests which the Ro-
man members of his order interjected. He never for-
got the fiendish words as long as he lived.
But however deeply the corruption of the hierarchy
stirred his emotions, it nevertheless comprised all his
hopes ; there was no God and no hereafter outside of
it. The lofty idea of the Catholic Church and its vic-
tories of fifteen hundred years fettered the minds of
even the strongest. And when, clad in the garments
of the Roman priesthood, he visited, at the risk of
his life, the ruins of ancient Rome and stood amazed
before the gigantic columns of the temples destroyed,
according to tradition, by the Goths, the warlike man
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THK RUPTURK WITH THE CHURCH. 3 1
from the mountains of the ancient Hermunduri little
dreamed that it would be his destiny to shatter the
temples of mediaeval Rome more thoroughly, fiercely,
grandly than had been done in bygone ages by the
cousins of his forefathers.
Luther still returned from Rome a faithful son of
the great mother, all heretical practices^ for instance
those of the Bohemians, being offensive to him. After
, his return he took a warm part in the controversy of
Reuchlin against the judges of heresy at Cologne, and
about 15 1 2 he was a partisan of the Humanists. But
even then he felt that something stood between him
and that school. Some years later when at Gotha, he
failed to visit the venerable Mutianus Rufus, although
he sent a very courteous letter of excuse. And soon
after he was offended in the dialogues of Erasmus by
the inner chillness and the worldly tone in which the
/ theological sinners were scoffed at. In the profane
worldliness of the Humanists the soul of Luther, so
happy in its faith, never felt truly at home, and that
pride which subsequently offended the sensitive Eras-
mus in a letter meant to be conciliatory, probably
dwelt in his soul even at that early time. The forms
of Luther's literary modesty during that time make
the impression that it was compelled from a firm spirit
by the power of Christian humility.
For, in his faith he then felt sure and great. As
early as 1516 he wrote to Spalatin who represented
his connexion with the Prince-Elector Frederick the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
32 ICARTIN LUTHER.
Wise, that the Elector was the wisest man in all the
afiairs of this world, but where God and salvation
were concerned he was struck with seven-fold blind-
ness.
Luther had cause for this utterance, for the provi-
dence of that well-poised prince was manifested, among
other things, by the prudent endeavors to gather the
means of grace recommended by the Church. Thus,
he had a peculiar fancy for relics, and at that time
Staupitz, vicar of the Augustine-Eremites of Saxony,
was engaged along the Rhine and elsewhere collecting
treasures of relics for the Elector. This absence of
the superior officer was important for Luther who had
to take his place. He was already a man of authority
in his order. Although a professor of theology since
1 51 2, he still lived in his monastery at Wittenberg,
and, as a rule, wore his monk's hood. He visited the
thirty monasteries of his congregation, deposed priors,
issued severe reprimands on lax discipline, and urged
severity towards fallen monks. Yet he still retained
something of the pious simplicity of the brother of the
monastery.
For it was in that sense that on October 31, 15179
after he had affixed the theses against Tetzel at the
church door, he wrote, full of confidence and simple
honesty, to the protector of the dealer in indulgences,
Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence. Full of the ingenu-
ous popular faith in the intelligence and good inten-
tions of the highest rulers, Luther thought — as he
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE RUPTURE WITH THE CHURCH. 33
often said in later times — that it needed but to repre-
sent honestly to the princes of the Church the disad-
vantage and immorality of such abuses. But how
childish did this zeal of the monk appear to the smooth
and refined princes of the Church I What aroused the
profound indignation ef the honest man was all fin-
ished, disposed of, laid aside, from the point of view
of the Archbishop. The sale of indulgences was an
evil which had been deplored a hundred times, but it
was unavoidable, as many institutions are to the pol-
itician which, while not good in themselves, must be
sustained for the sake of a great interest. The great-
est interest to the Archbishop and the curia was their
temporal dominion, which was gained and supported
by money made in that manner. The great interest
of Luther and the people was truth. This was the
parting of the ways.
Luther entered the struggle full of faith, a loyal
son of the Church, full of devotion to the authorities
of the Church. But, again, he had within him that
which confirmed him against too powerful an influence
from such authority, a secure relation with his God.
He was thirty-four years old at that time, in the prime
of his powers, of medium size, of slender but strong
body, which seemed tall by the side of the small, del-
icate, boyish figure of Melanchthon. In a countenance
showing the traces of nightly vigils and internal strug-
gles, there glowed the fiery eyes whose powerful ra-
diance was difficult to bear. A respected man, not
Digitized by VjOOQIC
34 ICARTIN LUTHER.
only in his order but also at the university; not a great
scholar, for he learned Greek from Melanchthon the
following year and Hebrew immediately after ; he pos-
sessed no extensive book-learning and never was am-
bitious to shine as a Latin poet. But he was aston-
ishingly well read in the Scriptures and some fathers
of the Church, and what he absorbed he digested with
German thoroughness. He was indefatigable as a
minister of his congregation, a zealous preacher, a
warm friend, having recovered an honest cheerfulness
at that time, of assured bearing, courteous and adroit,
his intercourse marked by conscious assurance which
often transfigured his features with a happy humor.
Small events of the day readily moved or disturbed
him ; he was irritable and wept easily, but if a great
call approached him and he had overcome the first
nervous excitement — which, for instance, embarrassed
him in his first appearance at the Diet of Worms — he
possessed a wonderful equanimity and assurance. He
knew not fear ; his leonine nature even took enjoy-
ment in the most dangerous situations. Accidental
danger of life which he incurred, insidious attacks of
his enemies, were scarcely held worthy of mention at
that time.
The foundation of this superhuman heroism, as it
were, was again his firm personal relationship to his
God. He had long periods when he desired martyr-
dom, smiling and inwardly happy, to serve the truth
^,nd bis God.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE CONFLICT. 35
Still the future held terrible struggles in store for
him, but they were not of the kind in which he was
met by men. It was the Devil himself he had to beat
down for years, again and again ; he overcame the an-
guish and torments of Hell which was busily at work
to obscure his understanding. Such a man might be
killed, but could hardly be conquered.
THE CONFLICT.
That period of the struggle which follows next,
from the beginning of the controversy over the sale of
indulgences to the departure from the Wartburg, the
period of his greatest victories and of immense pop-
ularity, is perhaps best known, and- yet it seems that
his character during that period is still not judged
aright.
Nothing is more remarkable during that time than
the manner in which Luther gradually became es-
tranged from the Roman Church. He was modest in
life and without ambition ; he clung with most pro-
found reverence to the lofty idea of the Church, the
community of the faithful for fifteen hundred years.
And yet in four short years he was to be separated
from the faith of his fathers, torn away from the soil
in which he was so firmly rooted. And during all that
time he would stand alone in the struggle, alone, or
at least with but a few loyal companions — since 1518
with Melanchthon. He was to encounter all the dan-
gers of the fiercest war, not only against countless en-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
36 MARTIN LUTHER.
emies, but also against the anxious warnings of hon-
est friends and protectors. Thrice the Roman party
tried to silence him by the mission of Cajetanus, the
persuasive arts of Miltitz, the untimely assiduity of
the quarrelsome £ck ; thrice he spoke himself to the
Pope in letters which are among the most valuable
documents of those years. Then came the divorce ;
he was cursed and outlawed ; according to old uni-
versity usage, he burned the challenge, and with it
the possibility of retreat.
/ With cheerful confidence he went to Worms that
the princes of his nation might decide whether he
should die or live among them thenceforth without
Pope or church, according to the Scriptures only.
At first, when he had issued in print the theses
against Tetzel, he was astonished at the tremendous
attention they aroused in the empire, the venomous
hatred of his enemies, and the expressions of joyful
recognition which he received on many hands. Was
his action such an unheard-of thing? What he had
uttered was believed by all the best men of the
Church. When the Bishop of Brandenburg sent
the Abbot of Lehnin to him with the request that
Luther should suppress the publication of his Ger-
man sermon on ^'Absolution and Grace,'' no matter
how just his position was, the friar of the poor Au-
gustinian monastery was deeply moved that such
great men should speak kindly and cordially to him,
and he was inclined rather to give up the publication
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE CONFLICT. 37
than to appear like a freak of nature bent on disturbing
the peace of the Church. He endeavored zealously to
controvert the rumor that the Prince-Elector occa-
sioned his quarrel with Tetzel. ** They want to in-
volve the innocent Prince in the hatred that pursues
:\ me." He was willing to do anything to preserve the
' peace, before Cajetanus and with Miltitz ; only one
thing he would not do, he could not recant what he
had said against the un-Christian extension of the sale
of indulgences. Yet it was recantation alone that the
hierarchy demanded of him. For a long time he con-
tinued to desire peace, penance, retreat to the peace-
ful activity of his cell, and yet again and again an un
truthful assertion of his adversaries set his blood on
fire, and each contradiction was followed by a new
and sharper blow of his weapon.
Even in the first letter to Leo X., of May 30, 1518,
the heroic assurance of Luther is striking. As yet he
is the faithful son of the Church, as yet he lays him-
self at the feet of the Pope, offers him his whole life
and being, and promises to honor his voice as the
voice of Christ, whose vicege rent the head of the ^A^Il^^
Church is. But even from this humility, which be-
came the member of the monastic order, there flashes
forth the violent words : '' If I have merited death I
do not refuse to die." And in the letter itself, how
vigorous are the terms in which he describes the
coarseness of the sellers of pardons 1 There was hon-
est surprise why his theses made so much stir, those
Digitized by VjOOQIC
38 MARTIN LUTHER.
sentences so hard to understand and involved in enig-
matical forms according to ancient usage. And good
humor sounds through the manly words: <<What
shall I do? I cannot recant. In our century full of
genius and beauty that might crowd a Cicero to the
wall, I, an unlearned, narrow man, without refine-
ment of culture, should not assume this task ! But
necessity compels me, the goose must chatter among
the swans. '*
The following year nearly all the friends of Luther
united to bring about a reconciliation. Staupitz and
Spalatin, back of them the Prince- Elector, scolded,
begged, and urged. The papal chamberlain, Miltitz
himself, praised Luther's disposition, whispered to
him that he was perfectly right, implored, drank with
him, and kissed him. True, Luther thought he knew
that the courtier had the secret mission to carry him
prisoner to Rome if possible. But the mediators hap-
pily found the point where the stubborn man agreed
with them heartily, viz., that respect for the Church
must be maintained and its unity left undisturbed.
Luther promised to keep still and to leave the decis-
i ion of the controverted points to three respectable
bishops. In this position he was urged to write a let-
ter of excuse to the Pope. But even this letter of
March 3, 15 19, undoubtedly passed upon by the me-
diators and wrung from the writer, is characterise
tic of the progress Luther had made. Of humility
which our theologians read in it, it contains very lit-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE CONFLICT. 39
tie, but shows a careful diplomatic attitude through-
out. Luther regrets that he had been charged with
lack of reverence, whereas that which he had done
was intended to protect the honor of the Roman
Church ; he promis<3s to keep silent about pardons
and indulgences in the future, provided his adversa-
ries would do likewise ; he promises to publish an ad-
dress to the people admonishing them to obey the
Roman Church sincerely and not to become estranged
from it because its opponents had been insolent and
himself rude.
But all these submissive words fail to cover the
chasm which already separates his mind from the Ro-
man spirit. And it sounds like cold irony when he
writes : "What shall I do, most Holy Father ? I lack
all advice. I cannot bear the weight of your wrath,
and yet I know not how I can escape it. They demand
of me a recantation. If it could effect what is intended
by it I should recant without a doubt. But the oppo-
sition of my adversaries has spread my writings further
than I ever had hoped; they sit too deeply in the
souls of men. In our Germany there now flourish tal-
ent, culture, free judgment. Should I recant, I should
cover the Church with still greater obloquy in the
judgment of my countrymen. And it is they, my ad-
versaries, that have brought disgrace upon the Roman
Church among us." Finally he concludes politely:
<< Should I be able to do more, I shall without doubt
Digitized by VjOOQIC
40 MARTIN LUTHER.
be quite ready for it. Christ save your Holiness. —
M. Luther."
Much may be read behind this temperate restraint.
Even if the vain £ck had not at once forced the entire
University of Wittenberg into the fight^ this letter
could scarcely be taken in Rome as a sign of repen-
tance and submission.
/ Rome had spoken and Luther stood condemned.
Yet once more Luther showed the spirit of reconcilia-
tion that characterises the deepest sentiments of his
heart. A second time, appealing directly to the Pope,
he wrote that celebrated great letter, which at the re-
quest of the indefatigable Miltitz he dated back to
September 6, 1520, in order to be able to ignore the
bull of excommunication. It is the beautiful reflexion
of a resolute spirit who, at once grand in sincerity and
noble in disposition, from his lofty standpoint entirely
overlooks his adversary. With genuine sympathy he
speaks of the person and the difficult position of the
Pope, but it is the sympathy of a stranger ; still, he
ruefully deplores the Church, but one feels that he
has outgrown it himself. It is a letter of divorce, cut-
ting keenness coupled with a positive attitude and
silent sorrow ; thus does a man part from that which
he once loved and has found unworthy. To the me-
diators this letter was to be the last bridge, for Luther
it was spiritual emancipation.
Luther himself had become a different man in
these years. In the first place, he had acquired firm
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE CONFUCT. 4 1
self-reliance in his intercourse with the mighty ones
of this earth and at a high price acquired an insight
into the politics and private character of those who
governed. To the peaceful character of his sovereign
there was nothing, at bottom, more painful than this
bitter theological controversy which at times promoted
his politics, but always disturbed him mentally. For-
ever the court sought to restrain the men of Witten-
berg, and ever Luther took care that it was too late.
Whenever the faithful Spalatin warned against a new
polemic step, the answer came back to him that there
was no help, the sheets were printed and already in
many hands and beyond recall.
In his intercourse with his adversaries, also, Luther
acquired the assurance of a tried champion. He still
felt bitterly that in the spring of 1518 Jerome Enser
at Dresden insidiously led him to a supper at which
he was obliged to fight with angry enemies, particu-
larly when he learned that a begging Dominican friar
had listened at the door and spread the tale in the
city the next day, that Luther was completely smoth-
ered and that the listener could scarcely restrain him-
self from leaping into the room and spitting in the
heretic's face.
At the first meeting with Cajetanus he still sank
humbly down at the feet of the prince of the Church ;
after the second meeting he permitted himself to think
that the Cardinal was as fit for his business << as an
ass for harp plajring.'' The courteous Miltitz was
d/kYUiAJ^
Digitized by VjOOQIC
42 MARTIN LUTHEIU
treated with corresponding politeness. The Romanist
had hoped to tame the German bear ; soon the court-
ier got into that position which fitted him : he became
the tool of Luther. And in the disputation of Leipsic
with £ck, the favorable impression which the sincere
and firm manner of Luther created was the best coun-
terbalance against the complacent assurance of his
adroit adversary.
BATTLES WITHIN AND BATTLES WITHOUT.
The time when Luther was driven into a struggle
with the greatest power on earth, was for him a period
of terrible suffering. Close to the elation of victory
lay mortal anxiety, torturing doubt, and fearful temp-
tation. He alone with a few, in arms against all
Christendom, in ever more implacable hostility to the
mightiest power which still embraced all that was sa-
cred to him from his youth. If, after all, he erred in
this thing or that ? He was responsible for every soul
that he carried along with him. And whither? What
was there outside of the Church? Annihilation, de-
struction in this life and hereafter. If adversaries and
timid friends cut his heart with reproaches and warn-
ings, incomparably greater was the torment, the secret
gnawing, the uncertainty which he durst not confess
to anybody.
In prayer alone he found peace. Whenever his
soul, fervently seeking God, soared in mighty upward
flight, there came to him fulness of strength, compo-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
BATTLES WITHIN AND BATTLES WITHOUT. 43
sure, and serenity. But in the hours of depression,
when his impressionable soul quivered under contrary
impressions, then he felt embarrassed, divided, under
the bane of another power which was inimical to his
God.
From his childhood he knew how busily the evil
spirits hover about man ; from Scripture he had learned
that the Devil works upon the purest, to destroy them.
On his path, also, lurked busy devils to weaken, to
entice him, to make countless others miserable through
him. He saw them work in the angry features of the
Cardinal, in the sneering face of £ck, yea, in the
thoughts of his own soul. He knew how powerful
they were in Rome.
In his youth he had been tormented by apparitions,
now they returned. Out of the dark shadow of his
study the spectre of the tempter raised its claws against
his reason, even in the form of the Saviour did the
Devil approach the praying man, radiant as the Prince
of Heaven with five wounds, as the old Church pic-
tured Him. But Luther knew that Christ appears to
poor mortals only in His words or in such humble
form as He hung on the cross. And he gathered him-
self up indignantly and cried out to the apparition :
f'Get thee gone, thou blaspheming devil," and the
apparition vanished.
Thus the strong heart of the man labored in wild
insurrection for long years with ever fresh force. It
was a ceaseless struggle between reason and illusion.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
44 IfARTIN LUTHER.
But ever he rose victor, the primary strength of his
healthy nature conquered. In long prayer, often last-
ing for hours, the stormy billows of emotion were
smoothed, his massive understanding and his con-
science ever led him from doubt to certainty. He felt
this emancipating process as a merciful inspiration of
his God. And after such moments his anxious fear
gave way to a perfect indifference to the judgment of
! men ; he became immovable and inexorable.
Altogether different appears his personality in the
struggle with the enemies of this earth. With scarcely
an exception he there displays secure superiority, most
especially in his literary disputes.
Gigantic was the literary activity which he devel-
oped. Up to 15 17 he had published little, from that
time forward he became at once not only the most fer-
tile but also the most popular writer of Germany. The
swing of his style, the power of demonstration, the
fire and passion of his convictions carried everything
before them. No one had ever spoken thus to the
people. His language adapted itself to every mood,
to every key, now terse and condensed and sharp as
steel. Again in ample breadth, a mighty river, his
words penetrated the people. His imagery and strik-
ing comparisons made the most di£Scult things intel-
, ligible. His was a wonderful creative power.
He handled language with sovereign facility. No
sooner did he seize the pen, than his mind worked
with the greatest freedom. His sentences exhale the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
BATTLES WITHIN AND BATTLES WITHOUT. 45
serene warmth which filled him. The full charm of
heartfelt joy in the work is poured over them. And
his power is not the least manifest in the attacks which
he directed at individual opponents. But it is also
closely allied with the impropriety which caused ap-
prehensions even in his admiring contemporaries. He
loved to play with his adversaries, his fancy clothes
the figure of the enemy with a grotesque mask, and
this picture of his fancy he taunts, scoffs^ and thrusts
at with turns of speech that do not sound temperate
and not always proper. But it is in this very invec-
tive that his good humor, as a rule, conciliates the
reader, though not those whom he hits. Petty spite-
fulness he scarcely ever shows, not infrequently, how-
ever, an indelible good humor.
At times, it is true, he gets into the real artist's
passion ; he forgets the dignity of the reformer and
pinches like a naughty child, nay, like a spiteful gob-
lin. How he plucked all his opponents to pieces !
Now, as by the blows of a club swung by a wrathful
giant, again with a fool's bauble.
He loved to ridicule the names of his adversaries.
Thus they lived in the circle of Wittenberg as beasts
or as fools. Eck became Dr. Geek,* Murner^ received
a cat's head and claws ; Emser, who had his coat of
arms, a goat's head, painted on most of his polemic
1 Geeks coxcomb.
S " Mnrr," a familiar designation for cat. We must add here that this
viras the custom of the age, for Murner himself never fails to represent his
own picture in his satires with a cat's bead and cat's claws.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
46 MARTIN LUTHER.
writings, was maltreated as a he-goat ; the Latin name
of the recreant Humanist Cochlaeus* was re-translated
and Luther greeted him as a snail with an impene-
trable coat of mail and — it is painful to relate — even
called him snotnose. Worse, and terrifying even to
his contemporaries, was the violent recklessness with
which he inveighed against hostile princes. Towards
the cousin of his sovereign, Duke George of Saxony,
he often exhibited an unavoidable forbearance. Each
considered the other a prey to the Devil, but secretly
each respected the manly worth of the other. Again
and again they got into disputes, literary ones, also ;
but again and again Luther prayed heartily for the
soul of his neighbor. On the other hand, the arbitrary
wickedness of Henry VIII. of England was loathsome
to the inmost heart of the German reformer, he in-
veighed against him most shockingly and intermin-
ably. And even during his last years he treated the
violent Henry of Brunswick like a naughty schoolboy.
Harlequin was the most harmless among the many
characters in which he produced him.
If such an effusion of his stared him in the face in
print when it was too late, and if friends made com-
plaint, he would be vexed at his rudeness, scold him-
self, and be sincerely penitent ; but repentence helped
little, for at the next opportunity he fell into the same
error. And Spalatin had some cause to look with
suspicion upon a projected publication; even when
1 Latin c0ckUat meaning a snail.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
ACCEPTING THE SUMMONS. 47
Luther intended to write very mildly and tamely. His
opponents could not equal him in vigor. They called
him names with equal good-will, but they lacked men-
tal freedom. Unfortunately, it can hardly be denied
that this seasoning of the moral dignity of his nature
often made his writings particularly irresistible to the
common people of the sixteenth century.
ACCEPTING THE SUMMONS.
In the autumn of 1517 Luther got into a quarrel
with a dissolute Dominican friar; in the winter of
1520 he burned the papal bull. In the spring of 151 8
he had prostrated himself at the feet of the Pope, the
vicegerent of Christ ; in the spring of 152 1 he declared
at the Diet of Worms, before the Emperor and the
princes and papal legates, that he did not believe
either the Pope or the Councils alone, but only the j
testimony of the Holy Scriptures and rational thought, j
Luther knew since December, 1520, that his case
was to be heard at the Diet, called to meet at Worms,
and he also knew that the cardinal-delegate Aleander
was ceaselessly urging the Emperor to be severe with
him, that the Emperor himself was not favorably dis-
posed towards the bold monk whose heretical books
he had burned in the Netherlands. The Prince-Elector
of Saxony reached Worms early in January, and found
the Emperor present. The great men of the empire
gathered slowly and tardily. It was not until the end
pf Febniary, 1521, that the Diet could be opened.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
48 MARTIN LUTHER.
The intelligence which came from Worms to Wit-
tenberg, travelling about as fast as a letter from
Europe to America does to-day, took on a less favor-
able tone. The Emperor and Luther's enemies
thought it improper that the excommunicated friar
should be admitted to the Diet at all, and Prince-
Elector Frederick and the other princes of the empire
who thought it was wrong, or, at least, imprudent, on
account of the popular excitement, to condemn him
without a hearing, were obliged to put forth the great-
est efforts to obtain the concession that the heretic
be asked to recant, and also that he be granted safe-
conduct.
Thus it was not unknown to Luther that imperial
outlawry threatened him, and his death was probable.
Naturally such a prospect should have impaired some-
what the cheerfulness and literary productiveness of
even the most virile man. But in his case the reverse
was true. Scarcely at any other time in his life did
he write so much and such a variety of matter as dur-
ing those months. He took his old literary opponent,
Ambrosius Catharinus, by the collar, and, with even
greater energy, the tedious Emser, of Leipsic, whom
he scored, ridiculed, and cuffed in a series of little
books. The Pope, the legates, and their courtesans
were represented with harsh humor in wood-cuts by
his friend, Lucas Cranach, contrasting the humility
of the suffering Christ with the splendor of the clergy.
He also labored indefatigably for education and the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
ACCEPTING THE SUMMONS. 49
ministry of souls. Besides some sermons and the
Instructions for Penitents^ this period brought the first
part of the FostilSy one of his principal works, he
worked on his exegesis of the Book of Psalms and on
the fine and soulful book Explanation of Mary's Song
of Praise.
At last the imperial herald, Caspar Sturm, who
was called ''Germania" in the heraldic language of
the Latins, brought the letter of safe-conduct to Wit-
tenberg and rode ahead of the waggon of Luther, who
started for Worms on April 2 with Amsdorf and two
other companions. In the cities of Thuringia the
people crowded about the waggon offering their good
wishes. At Erfurt, the Humanists, who were the rul-
ing party at that university, met him in a great pro-
cession on horseback and gave a brilliant feast.
But through all these enthusiastic acclamations
there sounded a shrill note of discord. The Emperor
had promised safe-conduct for the journey both ways,
and the princes through whose domains he travelled,
had also sent letters to protect him. Nevertheless,
the Emperor did not want the excommunicated friar
to reach Worms, and, in order to deter him, he issued
an order in advance of the hearing and had it pro-
claimed in the cities that all of Luther's books should
be given up to the authorities. Luther found the pro-
clamation posted in the cities. His friends at Worms
were alarmed. Spalatin sent him a warning that the
fate of Huss was in store for him ; even the herald
Digitized by VjOOQIC
50 MARTIN LUTHER.
asked if he still insisted on continuing his journey.
Luther himself was startled, but could not be turned
aside. He sent answer to Spalatin that Huss was
burned, but the truth was not burned, and he would
go to Worms though there were as matiy devils as
tiles on the roofs.
Milder means, also, were tried to divert him. The
Emperor's confessor, Glapio, went to Sickingen at
Ebernburg, apparently of his own free will, and ad-
vised most urgently that Luther should avoid Worms,
and go to Ebernburg to seek first an understanding
with him. If Luther had accepted this proposition, it
would have been impossible to keep within the time
for which he was protected by the safe - conduct.
Luther replied to the well-meaning bearer of the mes-
sage that if the Emperor's confessor desired to speak
with him he could be found at Worms.
When he drove into Worms, on the last day of
the term allowed for the journey, he was escorted by
a cavalcade of a hundred horsemen, most of them
Saxon gentlemen, who had come to meet him, while
the people crowded the streets and watched him with
curiosity ; and his quarters, which were assigned him
in the house of the order of St. John, were visited
until late into the night by noble callers who were
full of curiosity and sympathy. The next day he was
cited before the Diet.
It was a disagreeable surprise to the papist party
that Luther had the courage to come. It was incon-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE DIET OF WORMS. jl
venient to the Emperor also. It was necessary, then,
to calm 'the excitement which his presence created
among the Germans, by a speedy decision. On the
other hand, his friends and a majority of the princes
who desired a compromise and a friendly settlement
of the dangerous dispute, did not want to have the
matter treated hastily. Chief among these was the
Prince-Elector, Frederick the Wise, whose prudent
manner could not suffer any violent and superficial
proceeding, particularly as such a course would put
himself in a most unpleasant situation with the empire.
He required time to satisfy his conscience and come
to a decision. His confidential advisers knew that it
would be simply a question of recantation and that
there was no possibility of any discussion or debate
before the Diet. Luther, however, had declared pos-
itively that he would recant nothing. He was required,
first of all, to satisfy his sovereign and all who were
inclined to mediate by asking for time to reflect upon
so grave and difficult a matter. It was a mere ques-
tion of postponing the final decision, but Luther was
obliged, whether he would or not, to conform to this
requirement.
THE DIET OF WORMS.
It was on April 17, at four o'clock in the afternoon,
that Luther was escorted to the Diet by the imperial
marshal, Ulrich von Pappenheim, and the herald.
The people crowded the streets and climbed on the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
52 MARTIN LUTHER.
roofs to see Luther, so that he was taken by side
streets to the Episcopal Court, where the Diet was in
session. This court, according to popular tradition,
was in ancient times the royal palace of Gunther,
King of the Burgundians, and it was there that the
King, with the gloomy Hagen, devised the secret plot
against the life of the sunny hero Siegfried. Since
that time the celebrated building has been destroyed
by the French. The princes and other participants
in the Diet sat in the main hall, which opened along
one side of an ante-room, so that they could be seen
from without and probably parts of their speeches
could be heard. But the princes themselves were not
wont to speak during the sessions. This was done by
their councillors, and the princes retired for private
conference when the time came for taking a decision.
Tradition tells us that on the threshold of the
hall George von Frundsberg, the famous general of
the imperial army, laid his hand on Luther's shoulder
and said kindly: '* My dear monk, thou goest to an
encounter which I and many foremost leaders of bat-
tle never have faced. If thou art right and sure of thy
cause, God speed thee, and be comforted. God will
not forsake thee."
When Luther was led in, Pappenheim cautioned
him that he could say nothing before the august as-
sembly except in answer to questions. When he en-
tered, he did not kneel down, as was expected of a
monk when appearing before the majesty of the Em-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE DIET OF WORMS. 53
peror, but stood bolt upright. In front of him he saw
the pale face and sombre glance of the young Em-
peror ; he saw the expression of anxiety in the kind
face of his sovereign^ the Elector, and found himself
in the presence of all those illustrious princes and
gentlemen, of whose dispositions and opinions he had
heard so much in late years.
The official of the Archbishop of Treves began as
speaker for the Emperor : ** His Imperial Majesty has
sent his mandate and summons to you, Martinus Lu-
ther, to appear before the present Diet, that you may
first give answer if you confess to the books which
have appeared everjrwhere in the Holy Roman Empire
under your title and name, and if you wrote them as
they here lie before your eyes." He pointed to a pile
of books lying on a bench. Jerome Schurf, who, with
five other doctors, was Luther's legal adviser, called
out: "Let the titles be read," and Luther repeated
the request.
The official read the titles of those books which
for years had excited the nation as was never done by
the publications of any man, either before or since.
Then he continued : ''Furthermore, if you confess to
the books, His Imperial Majesty demands that you
shall recant them here and now, and therefore asks
whether you will do so or not, since there is mixed in
them much evil and erroneous teaching which may
cause excitement and discontent in the common,
simple people. Consider and take this to heart."
Digitized by VjOOQIC
54 MARTIN LUTHER.
Luther's reply was about as follows: ''Most illus-
trious Emperor : Having appeared here in obedience
to your gracious bidding, I will answer, in the first
place, to the matter presented: The books whose
titles have just been read, and some others, which
were written for the instruction of the people, I con-
fess to, and shall adhere to such confession to the end
of my days. In the second place, however, since your
Imperial Majesty requires that I recant their contents,
I would answer that this is truly a great matter, for it
concerns everlasting life and relates to One who is
more than any one in this assembly ; it is His afiair
and action. That I may not, therefore, mislead the
poor Christian people and myself, I beg and ask that
your Imperial Majesty grant me a term for reflexion
and consideration."
The Emperor and the princes joined in a short
consultation. A majority insisted that the delay be
granted, and the official announced to Luther that the
Emperor's mercy would grant him time to reflect un-
til four o'clock the next day. Luther left with the
words: ''I shall consider the matter."
In this session he spoke low and with humility,
and, his enemies said, indistinctly. It may be that
the first impression of the assembly embarrassed him.
Assuredly it was a greater burden to him that he could
not speak out freely all that he wanted.
The delay was short. The desire of the enemies
to be rid of the disturber was too great. The question
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE DIET OF WORMS. 55
was what effect a refusal of Luther would produce.
For he declared again after returning to his lodgings,
that he would not recant a single stroke.
On April z8 he was again called for at four o'clock
and had to wait in the crowd for about two hours.
But when he entered the meeting this time, he was
quite himself again and utterly indifferent to the opin-
ion of men. He greeted the assembly according to
the manners of the court, by bending both knees a
trifle. He spoke respectfully but firmly, and his voice,
which was clear and high, as once upon a time was
that of Charlemagne, was heard all over the hall. In
a well-considered speech he greeted the Emperor and
the assembly, and first begged pardon if in word,
gesture, or manner he violated the manners of court-
life, since he was not brought up at any princely court,
but in the comers of monasteries. ^^In simplicity of
mind I have written and taught up to this time, and
sought nothing else on earth than the glory of God
and the instruction of those who believe in Christ."
Then he continued : *' To the two questions which
have been put to me I will answer in this wise : I con-
fess, as I did yesterday, that the books enumerated
were written by me and were issued in my name, un-
less by fraud or the ignorance of others something
was altered or wrongly extracted in the printing, for
I confess only to that which came from myself. Now,
my books are not of one kind, for in some I treated
quite simply and according to the Gospels, of faith
Digitized by VjOOQIC
56 MARTIN LUTHER.
and morals. These books must be held useful even
by my adversaries and worthy of being read by Chris-
tians. Even the angry and cruel bull of the Pope
calls some of my books harmless^ although it con-
demns them contrary to reason. If I were to begin to
recant these writings, on which both friends and ene-
mies are agreed, I should be in conflict with the gen-
eral and harmonious opinion.
'^The second series of my books is directed against
popery and the actions of the papists, against those
who, with evil teachings and example, have destoyed
and corrupted the Christian world, miserably op-
pressed, burdened, and tortured the consciences of
the faithful, also devoured the goods and possessions
of the great German nation by incredible tyranny and
rank injustice. Should I recant these books I should
do nothing else than to strengthen such tyranny and
un-Christian practices and throw open to them not the
windows alone, but the doors also, that they could
continue to rage and work evil, and their most im-
pudent and criminal rancor would be confirmed and
fastened upon the poor miserable people to a degree
that would be intolerable. This would be particularly
the case if it could be said that such increase of mis-
fortune happened at the order and upon the desire -of
your Imperial Majesty and the entire Roman Empire.
O my dear Lord, what an infamous cloak of villainy
and tyranny I should become by such a recantation !
" The third kind of my books are written against
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE DIET OF WORMS. 57
certain individuals who tried to protect Roman tyranny
and to eradicate the form of serving God which I
taught. I confess that against these adversaries I was
more violent than was proper, for I do not make my-
self out a saint, nor did I fight for myself, but for the
honor of Christ. These books, likewise, I cannot re-
cant, for my recantation and retreat would strengthen
the tyrannical wrath and mad government of the
enemies.
** My Lord Jesus Christ, when questioned by the
high priest about his teachings, and, bemg struck on
the cheek by a servant, said : ' If I have spoken evil,
bear witness of the evil.' Since the Lord did not re-
fuse to listen to an argument against his teachings,
even from the lowliest slave, how much more is it be-
coming in me, an erring man, to desire and expect
that some one may give me witness against my teach-
ings. Hence, I implore the highest and the lowest,
by the mercy of God, to prove my error and overcome
me with the evangelical and prophetic writings. If I
am instructed in that regard I will be the very first to
throw my books into the fire.
'< Yesterday I was admonished earnestly to reflect
that discord, riot, and rebellion may grow out of
my teachings in the world. I have considered and
weighed it sufficiently. In truth, it is most joyful to
me to see that on account of the divine word there
will be dissension in the world, for that is the conse-
quence and the fate which is prepared by the Word of
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
58 MARTIN LUTHER,
God. The Lord Himself said : * I came not to send
peace but a sword^ for I am come to set a man at va-
riance against his father.' Let us beware^ therefore,
lest we condemn the Word of God, under the pretext
of adjusting the quarrels of parties, that a flood of in-
sufferable evil may not come over us and lest the no-
ble youth, Emperor Charles, have an unhappy begin-
ning of his reign. I say this not as though my teach-
ing and warning was needed by such great heads, but
because I owe it to my native land to do her this ser-
vice. And thus I commend myself to the mercy of
the Emperor and beg that your Imperial Majesty may
not suffer me to fall into disfavor through the ill opin-
ion of my enemies.''
Thus spoke on April i8, 1521, a man from the
common people before the Emperor and all the
princes about the government of the highest spiritual
lord of the Christian world. The polite modesty of
the opening, the care with which he distinguished his
books, appeared as good address even to his enemies.
But soon after, he stood in the assembly a stranger
from another world, like a hero of old swinging his
iron club among a lot of delicate knights. His com-
fortable assurance in describing the heads of the clergy
as frivolous villains, and the final warlike assertion :
" It is most joyful to me to see how rebellion rises,"
before the august assembly which feared nothing more
than dissension among the people^ was not the lan-
guage of a penitent speaking for his neck, but the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE DIET OF WORMS. S9
proud utterance of a ruler chosen for victory or
ruin.
It was a weird effect that the daring words and the
demon-like eyes of the man made upon the official,
and he attempted to instruct and reprimand him :
''In your answer there were thrusts and biting at-
tacks, but no open declaration. What you teach has
been said by Huss and other heretics, and that teach-
ing has already been condemned at the Council of
Constance, with sufficient reason, by Pope and Em-
peror. I demand a simple, plain answer : Will you
recant or not? If you recant, your innocent little
books will be preserved ; if you do not recant, no re-
gard will be had for what else you may have written
in a Christian sense, and you will give his Imperial
Majesty cause to do with you as was done with Huss
and others."
It was then that Luther spoke the familiar words :
''Since his Imperial Majesty requires a simple and
straight answer, I will give an answer that is neither
offensive nor biting. I do not believe in either the
Pope or the councils alone, since it is plain that they
have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves.
Unless I am overcome with the testimony of the Scrip-
ture or with clear and transparent reasons, I will and
shall not recant a single word, for it is wicked and
dangerous to act contrary to conscience."
The official and Luther spoke Latin first, then re-
peated their words in German. After the words of
Digitized by VjOOQIC
6o MARTIN LUTHER.
Luther there was excitement and murmuring in the
hall, and the following Latin speeches of the two
champions were not heard all through the meeting.
The angry Emperor again asked, through the official,
if Luther dared assert that the councils had erred.
And when Luther answered : << Councils can err and
have erred, and the one of Constance decided con-
trary to the clear and lucid text of the Scripture,
which I will demonstrate," the Emperor had heard
enough. Amazed at such audacity, he gave the sig-
nal to close the proceedings and break up the meet-
ing. In response to the hostile gesture of the Em-
peror and amid the clamor of his enemies, Luther
finally exclaimed in German the words which, accord-
ing to the form handed down by his theological friends
in the editions of his works, were: *'Here I am. I
cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen ! *' In real-
ity they were probably uttered in this way : "I cannot
do otherwise. May God come to my aid. Amen. Here
I am."
It was the two days of the 17th and i8th of April,
1 52 1, that the two men looked in one another's faces
who have split the life of the Western World in twain,
the great enemies who in the great-grandchildren of
their spirit have fought each other down into the pres-
ent time, the Burgundian Hapsburger and the German
peasant's son, emperor and professor, the one who
spoke German only to his horse, the other the trans-
lator of the Bible and creator of the new German lan-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE DIET OF WORMS. 6 1
guage, the one the predecessor of the patrons of the
Jesuits, author of the house-policy of the Hapsburgs,
the other the precursor of Lessing, the great poets,
historians, and philosophers. It was an hour big
with fate for the history of the world when the young
Emperor, lord of half the world, spoke the contemp-
tuous words: ''That fellow shall not make a heretic
of me." For it was at that time that there began the
struggle of his house with the spirit of the people, a
struggle of over three centuries, victories and defeats
on both sides. As far as human judgment may read
the workings of Providence in the fate of nations, we
of to-day have at last seen the final outcome.
It was the first and only time, too, in German his-
tory, that a man from the people so firmly defended,
in peril of death, the demands of his conscience be-
fore the Emperor and the Diet. The effect of his
steadfastness upon the princes was great, immeasur-
ably great upon the people. When Frederick the
Wise came to his chamber from the assembly, he said
to his intimates, full both of admiration and of care :
''Doctor Martinus spoke well, in Latin and in Ger-
man. He is much too courageous for me.'' Even
among those princes who looked upon his teachings
with indifference or dislike, respect and awe of the
brave man increased.
Luther, upon returning from the grand assemblage
to his lodgings, raised his hands to Heaven and joy-
fully exclaimed: "I am through, I am through!*' He
Digitized by VjOOQIC
62 MARTIN LUTHER.
had escaped o^t into the open from the hedge of
thorns with which it was sought to surround him.
At last Luther was free. But what a freedom it
was ! He was banned by the Pope and outlawed by
the Emperor. Nevertheless, he was free — free within
himself, but free as the beast of the forest, a fugitive ;
and at his heels howled a pack of bloodthirsty en-
emies. He had arrived at the climax of his life, and
the powers against which he had rebelled, yea, the
thoughts which he himself had stirred up in the peo-
ple, thenceforth worked against his life and teachings.
THE HERO OF THE NATION.
The clouds lower ; the storm breaks ; the whole
nation is agitated by electric flashes. The words of
the Augustinian monk of Wittenberg crash and roll
like peals of thunder, and every blow means progress,
means victory. Even to-day, after a lapse of three
centuries and a half, the tremendous commotion of
the nation attracts us with irresistible magic. Never,
in the course of the German people's life, did its in-
most nature reveal itself at once so pathetically and
so superbly. All the fine features of the national soul
and character burst into bloom during that time ; en-
thusiasm, resignation, a profound moral wrath, search-
ing inquiry within the human mind after the sublime,
and serious pleasure in systematic thought. Each in-
dividual took part in the controversy. The wayfaring
pedlar disputed at the evening hearth-fire for or against
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE HERO OF THE NATION. 63
pardons and indulgences, the countryman in the most
remote valley heard with amazement of the new her-
etic whom his spiritual father cursed in every sermon.
The bag of the begging monk remained empty, for
the women of the village no longer gave cheese and
eggs. The tract literature swelled into an ocean, a
hundred printing presses were busy spreading the nu-
merous polemic writings, both learned and popular.
At every parish church, in every chapter, the divided
parties wrangled. At all points resolute clergymen
declared for the new doctrine, weaker ones wrestled
in anxious doubt, the gates of monasteries were
thrown open and the cells speedily emptied. Every
month brought something new, something unheard-of,
to the people.
It was no longer a quarrel among priests, as Hut-
ten had at first contemptuously called the controversy
of the men of Wittenberg with Tetzel. It had become
a war of the nation against Roman domination and its
supporters. In ever mightier outlines rises the figure
of Luther before the eyes of his contemporaries. Out-
lawed, cursed, persecuted by Pope and Emperor, by
princes and prelates, four years suffice to make him
the idolised hero of the people. His jojumey to
Worms is described in the style of the Scripture, and
the over-zealous compare him to the martyrs of the
New Testament. But the cultured classes, also, are
drawn into the battle in spite of themselves. Even
Erasmus smiles approval, and the soul of Hutten is
Digitized by VjOOQIC
04 MARTIN LUTHEB.
ablaze for the justice of the new gospel. He no longer
writes Latin. In forceful German words, wilder and
more impetuous than the men of Wittenberg, with a
fire that consumes him, the knight fights his last feuds
for the son of the peasant.
This portraiture of Luther, the man in whom for
half a generation was concentrated the best life of the
people, touches us very nearly. But before we try to
understand his soul, let us briefly indicate how his na-
ture aflected unprejudiced contemporaries, and first,
the testimony of a sober and clear mind who never
had close personal relations with Luther, and, subse-
quently, in an intermediate position between the men
of Wittenberg and the reformers of Switzerland, had
ample cause to be dissatisfied with Luther's stubborn-
ness. He was a friar from the old Benedictine mon-
astery of Alpirsbach, in the wildest part of the Black
Forest, Ambrosius Blaurer, born at Constance, of a
noble family, and thirty years old at the time under
discussion. He had left the monastery July 8, 1522,
and taken refuge with his family. Upon the request
of his Abbot, the Governor of the principality of
Wurtemberg demanded of the Mayor and Council of
Constance his extradition to the monastery. Blaurer
published a defence from which the following is taken.
Shortly afterwards he became preacher in Constance
and composed religious hymns ; after the last resto-
ration of Duke Ulrich he was one of the reformers of
Wurtemberg and died at a ripe old age and weary of
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE HERO OF THE NATION. 65
action at Winterthur, an irreproachable, worthy, tem-
perate man. What he commends and condemns in
Luther may be taken as the general opinion enter-
tained by serious minds of those years :
''I call upon God and my conscience to witness
that it was not wantonness or any other unworthy
motive that caused me to leave the monastery, as they
are now crying in the streets, that monks and nuns
leave their orders to the detriment of monastic peace
and discipline in order to live in the license of the
flesh and give the reins to their wantonness and
worldly passions. What caused me to escape was
honorable, weighty, and great troubles and urgent ad-
monitions of my conscience, based on, and directed
by, the Word of God. And I am confident that the
occasion and all the circumstances of my escape do
not indicate levity, frivolity, or any improper pur-
pose ; for I laid off neither hood nor cloak from my
person except a few days after my escape, for the sake
of safety, until I reached my place of refuge. Nor did
I go to the wars nor elope with a pretty woman, but,
without delay, as speedily as possible, went to my
dear mother and my relatives, who are of undoubted
Christian character and stand in such respect of prob-
ity in the city of Constance that they would not advise
or aid me towards any improper undertaking.
"Moreover, I trust that my past life and conduct
will readily turn aside from me any suspicion of im-
proper, wanton purpose. For while I do not presume
Digitized by VjOOQIC
66 MARTIN LUTUEIL
anything before God, I may justly boast before men,
since necessity now demands it, that I have by re-
spectable conduct kept a good reputation and esteem,
much love and favor in the monastery, at school, here,
and wherever I have been. So did even the message
from Wurtemberg, in your hearing, give me the praise
that there was no complaint or ill report of me in the
monastery of Alpirsbach on account of my character
or conduct, but that I carried myself well and piously,
except that, as they say, I gave too much heed to the
seductive and accursed doctrine of Martin Luther;
that I read and kept his writings and taught accord-
ingly, against the prohibition of the abbot, publicly in
the monastery and in my sermons to the laity ; and
that when I was enjoined not to do so, I poured the
doctrine secretly and in corners into the souls of some
inmates of the monastery. With such commendation
of my fathers and fellow-members I am entirely con-
tent and well satisfied, and will answer for this one
misdeed as a Christian, and on the strength of the
Word of God, and I hope that my excuse will assist
not only myself but others also in turning aside a false
and groundless suspicion.
" During the last few years, when the writings and
books of Martin Luther were issued and became
known, they also came to my hands before they were
prohibited and condemned by spiritual and temporal
authority. And, like other newly printed publications,
I looked at and read them. At first such doctrine ap-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE HERO or THE NATION. 67
peared somewhat strange and curious, even rude and
in conflict with long-established theology and wise
teachings of the school, also with some ordinances of
the papal spiritual law and in contradiction to old,
and, as I then deemed, laudable traditions and usages
handed down to us by our forefathers. By observing,
nevertheless, clearly that this man everywhere in his
teachings inserted lucid, plain passages of the Holy
Scripture by which all other human teachings should
be judged, accepted, or rejected, I wondered much
and was thereby induced to read such teachings not
once or twice, but often, with diligence and earnest
attention, and to reflect upon and compare them with
the Scripture of the Gospels to which they frequently
appeal. But the longer and more assiduously I did
so, the more I understood how this very learned and
enlightened man treated the Holy Scripture with such
great dignity, how altogether purely and delicately he
handled it, how he cited it at all points wisely and ap-
propriately, how daintily and skilfully he compared it
and connected its parts, explaining and making intel-
ligible the obscure and difficult texts by comparing
other passages that were clear and transparent, and I
saw his treatment of the Scripture showed the great-
est mastery and gave the most profitable help for thor-
oughly understanding it, so that every intelligent lay-
man who looks at his books rightly and reads them
diligently can clearly understand that this doctrine
has a perfectly true, Christian, and firm foundation.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
68 MARTIN LUTHER.
For that reason it struck my soul keenly and went
deep into my heart, and gradually the mist of many
old misunderstandings has dropped from my eyes.
For this doctrine did not become suspicious to me
like those of many other scholars and teachers which
I had read before, since it aims not at either domin-
ion, fame, or temporal pleasure, but presents to us
simply the poor, despised, crucified Christ and teaches
a pure, modest, tranquil life agreeable in all things to
the teachings of Christ, which is also the reason why
it is insufferable and too onerous for the haughty,
puffed-up doctors who seek in the Scripture rather
their own honor and glory than the spirit of God, and
to the priests who covet power and rich benefices.
Therefore, I will rather lose my body and life and
all my fortune than be moved from my position ; not
on account of Luther, who is personally strange and
unknown to me except by his writings — he, also, is
human and therefore subject to mistake and error like
other men — but on account of the Divine Word which
he carries in him so transparent and clear, and pro-
claims and elucidates with such victorious and tri-
umphant success and with such candid and unterrified
spirit.
"The enemies try to embitter this honey for us by
the fact that Luther is so irritable, violent, and harsh,
and lays hands with such frivolousness on his adver-
saries, especially the great princes, and lords tempo-
ral and spiritual, that he scolds and blasphemes them
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE HERO OF THE NATION. 69
and SO readily forgets brotherly love and Christian
humility. In that respect he has often displeased me
also, and I would not lead anybody to do as he does
in that regard. Nevertheless, I would not reject his
good Christian doctrine on that account, or even con-
demn him personally because I cannot comprehend
his mind and the secret judgment of God which per-
haps by this one defect will draw many people away
from his doctrine. And since he wants to defend not
his own cause, but the Word of God, there is room
for much indulgence, and this thing may be construed
as the zealous wrath of God. Even Christ, the source
and mirror of all gentleness, often rudely assailed the
stubborn, flinty-hearted Pharisees before all others,
cursing them and calling them false hypocrites, whited
sepulchres, blind and leaders of the blind, and children
of the Devil, as the history of the Gospels shows.
Perhaps Luther would be glad to give a great title to
many if he could do so with truth. But he may think
it inappropriate to call gracious those whose minds
are darkened, or good shepherds those who are raven-
ous wolves, or merciful those who know not mercy.
For, without a doubt, had not God been more merci-
ful to him than they, his body would no longer be on
earth. But, be that as it may, I will not defend it
here. We will reject the scoffing and scolding and
gratefully accept the earnestness of his Christian writ-
ings for our betterment.
**As I persisted freely in my well-founded purpose
Digitized by VjOOQIC
70 MARTIN LUTHER*
and would not be deterred by any human prohibition,
being a Christian, the ill-will of the Lord of Alpirs-
bach and several men of his monastery grew steadily
and violently against me, and the sword of the wrath
of God began to cut and cause discord among the
brothers. Finally I was commanded by the highest
authority to desist from my purpose and not to speak
on this subject to others in the monastery who were
favorable to me and inclined to Christian doctrine.
Moreover, I was not to preach or read in the monas-
tery, but be in every respect like all other brethren.
I wished not to resist, but was willing gladly to suffer
such violence in Christian patience, but with the re-
servation that for myself I should not be prohibited
from reading and keeping what, according to my
knowledge and insight, was in accordance with Holy
Writ and profitable for my salvation; also, that if
others should ask me and need such advice I should
afford them teachings, writings, books, and brotherly
instruction. For so I was commanded by the Lord,
my God, and I would hold His command higher than
all human obedience. But this proposition was viewed
with much disfavor and called intolerable sin; the
daily discord increased, the peace of the monastery
was undermined and shaken. One said he would no
longer remain in this school of heretics, another that
the Lutherans must leave the monastery or he would
depart, a third pretended that the house of God suf-
fered ill report and worldly disadvantage for my sake.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE HERO OF THE NATION. 7 1
as there was a belief that they were all of my opinion,
a fourth spoke of flogging, a fifth of something else,
so that it was impossible to tolerate the matter longer,
or remain in such discord without violating my con-
science. Hence I begged of my abbot and monastery
earnestly and with greatest assiduity a gracious and
free furlough ; I would maintain myself for a year or
two without expense to the house of God at some
school or elsewhere, and see if in the meantime by
divine interposition the cause of our dissension should
come to a peaceable issue, so that we could come to-
gether again united in evangelical doctrine with kind
and entirely brotherly love.
''But this being also refused by them, I escaped
from the monastery advisedly after having taken coun-
sel with wise, learned, prudent, and pious gentlemen
and friends.''
Thus far Ambrosius Blaurer.
While Brother Ambrosius was still looking with
anxious care from the window of his cell over the pines
of the Black Forest, another man entered into the gate
of a stately castle in the Thuringian Forest. Beneath
lay the gloomy Dragon's Hole, before him the long
ridge of the charmed H6rsel mountain in which dwelt
Venus, the fair devil, to whom the Pope, through his
unwillingness to forgive sins, had once upon a time
driven the penitent knight Tannhauser. But the with-
ered staff which the Pope on that occasion planted in
the ground turned green and fresh over night ; God
Digitized by VjOOQIC
72 MARTIN LUTHER.
Himself had refuted the Pope. Poor, penitent man,
relying on his child-like faith, no longer needs the
Roman bishop to find pity and mercy with his Heav-
enly Father, and the bad Pope himself must, accord-
ing to the legend, go down into the cave of the old
dragon.
THE OUTLAW OF THE WARTBURG.
The Emperor was more concerned than ever that
an end be made of the stubborn heretic, for he had
just made an alliance with the Pope and taken the
obligation to root out the false doctrine of Luther.
But most of the German princes, and notably the
Archbishop of Treves himself, demanded further ne-
gotiations in private circles, where personal influence
would count, and a regard for the unconciliatory dis-
position of the Germans compelled the Emperor to
yield a second time.
It was now Luther's task to withstand the shrewd
and earnest appeals of those whom he himself es-
teemed. In those negotiations many concessions were
made to him, but he must recognise the supreme
judgment of a general council. He insisted upon his
assertion that even a council could err, as it did err
at Constance. At last Richard of Treves saw that
nothing could be gained by negotiation with such a
man. Luther himself begged to be dismissed, and the
mediators left him with respectful adieus. The hours
of these noiseless discussions contributed nothing to
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE OUTLAW OF TH£ WARTBUR6. 73
the settlement of the dispute, and, in parting, Luther
spoke the devout words: *'As it pleased the Lord, so
has it come about ; the name of the Lord be praised ! **
Great elation and joy possessed his mind at the
wonderful victory of his cause, which he had sustained
before the Emperor and the princes of the realm. It
was in vain that enemies tried, by finding fault with
his appearance and bearing, to detract from the great
impression. He had become a hero to the people,
who looked up to him with adoration and anxious
sympathy. All prudent men saw that this teacher of
the people, if he lived, would become a mighty power,
not only for the doctrine of the Church but also for
the political fortunes of the empire.
The greatest care of his friends was to save him
from destruction.
At Worms, Luther was informed that he must dis-
appear for a time. The habits of the Prankish knights,
among whom he had loyal admirers, suggested the
idea of having him seized by men-at-arms. Prince-
Elector Frederick counselled with his faithful men
about the abduction. And it was quite in keeping with
the character of that prince that he did not want to
know the place where Luther was to be kept, in order
to be able to confirm his ignorance by oath in case of
necessity. Nor was it easy to win Luther's favor for
the plan, for his brave heart had long since overcome
worldly fear, and it was with an enthusiastic joy, in
which there was much fanaticism and some humor,
Digitized by VjOOQIC
74 MARTIN LUTHER.
that he tboked upon the attempts of the Romanists to
remove from this world him over whom Another was
disposing Who only spoke through his mouth.
There are many passages to show how complacently
he looked upon death. Here is one written during the
Wartburg period in the introduction to the Gospel-
Reading of the Ten Lepers (Sept. 17, 1521): "Poor friar
that I am, I have once more lighted a fire, I have bitten
a great hole in the pockets of the papists, because I
assailed the confessional. Where shall I now hide
myself, and where will they now get enough sulphur,
pitch, fire, and wood to destroy the venomous heretic ?
They will have to take out the church windows, since
some holy fathers and gentlemen of the cloth preach
that they must have air to proclaim the Gospel, i. e.,
to malign Luther, to cry murder and spit fire. What
else could they preach to the poor people ? Each one
must preach as he can. But ' Kill, kill, kill the here-
tic I * they cry. * He wants to turn all things upside
down and upset the whole clerical profession, on which
all Christendom rests.* Now, I hope, if I am worthy
of it, they will succeed and kill me and over me fill
the measure of their fathers. But it is not yet time,
my hour is not yet come, I must first stir the wrath of
the viper-brood more fiercely, and honestly deserve
death from them, that they may have cause to perform
a great service of God upon me."
Reluctantly Luther submitted to the plan of his
friends. The secret was not easily kept, however
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THB OUTLAW OF THE WARTBURG. 75
adroitly the abduction to the Wartburg was planned.
At first only Melanchthon, among the men of Witten-
berg, knew of his whereabouts. Now, Luther was not
at all the man to submit even to the best-meant in-
trigues. There soon began a busy running of messen-
gers between the Wartburg and Wittenberg ; no mat-
ter what care was employed in transmitting the letters,
it was difficult to disprove the rumor.
Luther, on the Wartburg, learned sooner than the
men of Wittenberg what happened in the great world ;
he received intelligence of all the new happenings of
his university and tried to sustain the courage of his
friends and to guide their policy. Truly touchmg are
his efforts to encourage Melanchthon who, in his im-
practical nature, felt painfully the absence of his
strong friend. **It will go along without me," wrote
Luther, **only have courage, I am no longer neces-
saTry to you ; if I come forth and cannot again return
to Wittenberg, I shall go into the world. You are the
man to hold the fortress of the Lord against the Devil,
without me."
His letters were addressed '* from the air," "from
Patmos," "from the desert," "among the birds which
sing sweetly from the trees and praise God with all
their might day and night."
Once he tried to be crafty. In a missive to Spa-
latin he enclosed a decoy letter ; it was believed, he
wrote, without reason, that he was on the Wartburg ;
he was living among loyal brothers ; it was remark-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
76 MARTIN LX7THER.
able that no one thought of Bohemia ; there was added
a thrust — not a malicious one — at Duke George of
Saxony, his most zealous enemy. Spalatin was to
lose this letter with careful negligence so that it might
reach the hands of his adversaries. But in such diplo-
macy he was not consistent, for as soon as his leonine
nature was aroused by a piece of intelligence he would
forthwith resolve to depart for Erfurt or Wittenberg.
/ He bore the idleness of his sojourn hard. He was
treated with the greatest attention by the commander
of the castle, and this care was shown, as was then
the custom, in the first place, by the loyal keeper
furnishing his best in the matter of food and drink.
The rich life, the lack of exercise, the fresh mountain
air into which the theologian was transplanted, had
their effects on soul and body. He had brought from
Worms a bodily ailment ; then there came hours of
dark melancholy unfitting him even for work.
Two days in succession he joined in the chase.
But his heart was with the few hares and partridges
that were being driven into the nets by the throng of
men and dogs. *' Innocent little beasts I That is the
papists' fashion of hunting." To save the life of a
little hare he folded it up in the sleeve of his coat, but
the dogs came and broke its legs within the folds of
the protecting coat. ** So does Satan," said he, ' 'chafe
against the souls which I try to save.*'
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A contemporary's description of eutuer. 77
A CONTEMPORARY'S DESCRIPTION OF LUTHER.
An excellent report of the personality of Luther
in the days of his residence on the Wartburg is still
extant in Johannes Kessler's Sabbata, a chronicle of
the years 1523-1539, edited by E. G6tzinger. When
travelling with a friend from Switzerland to Saxony,
Kessler met Luther, who had left the Wartburg for a
short time and was secretly riding towards Wittenberg
in the garb of a knight. Their meeting is so vividly
described by the young student that it should not be
omitted here.
Johannes Kessler, born about 1502, the son of poor
burghers of St. Gall, Switzerland, attended the mon-
astery school of that place, studied theology at Basel,
and in the early spring of 1522 went with a compan-
ion to Wittenberg to continue his studies under the
reformers. In the winter of 1523 he returned home,
and, since the new doctrine had no abiding place yet
in that country and he was very poor, he resolved to
learn a trade. He turned saddler. A little congre-
gation soon gathered about him; he taught, preached,
worked in his shop, and wrote books, finally became
a school teacher, librarian, and member of the board
of education. His was a modest, gentle, pure nature,
with a heart full of love and mild warmth. He took
no active part in the theological controversies of his
age. His tale begins :
Digitized by VjOOQIC
78 MARTIN LUTHER.
*' While travelling to Wittenberg to study the Holy
Scripture we came to Jena, in the Thuringian land,
in a thunder-storm which, Heaven knows, raged furi-
ously, and after much inquiry in the city for a night's
lodging we failed to secure any, being refused every-
where. For it was Shrove-Tuesday, when little care
was taken of pilgrims and strangers. We turned to
go out of the city and continue our journey in hope of
finding a village where we could be lodged. Under
the gate we met a respectable man who accosted us
kindly and asked whither we were bound so late, as
we could not before night reach any house or shelter
where we would be kept. Moreover, the road was
easily missed and we might be lost. So he advised
us to remain.
''We answered : ' Dear father, we called at all the
inns to which we were directed hither and thither, but
everywhere we were turned away and denied lodging,
hence we must needs go on our way.' Whereupon he
asked if we had inquired at the Black Bear. We said :
* We did not see it. Tell us, kind sir, where shall we
find it ? ' He showed it to us, a little outside of the
city. And when we saw the Black Bear, lo, while all
other inn-keepers had previously denied us lodging,
this one came to the door, received us, and kindly
offered to lodge us, and led us into the room.
''There we found a man sitting alone at the table,
and before him lay a little book. He greeted us kindly,
bade us come near and sit at the table with him. For
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A contemporary's description of LUTHER. 79
our shoes — if I may be permitted to say so — ^were so
covered with dirt and mud that for shame we did not
enter the room merrily, but stealthily sat down on a
bench near the door. He offered us to drink, which
we could not refuse. So, seeing his kindness and cor-
diality, we sat down at his table, as he had bidden,
and had a measure of wine served that we might return
the compliment and offer him to drink. We thought
nothing else than that he was a horseman who sat
there according to the custom of the country, with a
red leather cap, in hose and doublet, without armor,
a sword at his side, the right hand on the pommel, the
left grasping the hilt. His eyes were black and deep
set, shining and sparkling like stars, so that one might
not well bear to look into them.
"But he soon began to ask whence we came, an-
swering himself, however : ' You are Swiss. From
what part of Switzerland ? ' We replied : * From St.
Gall. ' Then he said : ' If you go from here to Wit-
tenberg, as I hear is your intention, you will find good
countrymen, Dr. Jerome Schurf and his brother. Dr.
Augustin. '
''We said : 'We have letters to them.' Then we
asked him again : ' Sir, can you inform us if Martin
Luther is at present staying in Wittenberg or at what
place else he is ? '
"Said he : * I have certain information that Luther
is not at Wittenberg just at present, but he is soon to
g<5 there. Philippus Melanchthon is there, however ;
Digitized by VjOOQIC
8o MARTIN LUTUEiU
he teaches the Greek language, as others also teach
the Hebrew. In good faith, I will counsel you to
study both for they are necessary to understand the
Holy Scripture.'
" Said we : ' God be praised. For if God gives us
life we will not stop till we see and hear this man.
For his sake we have undertaken this journey, since
we heard that he wants to upset the priesthood and
the mass as not being based on a solid foundation.
Since we have been educated and destined by our pa-
rents from childhood to be priests, we would fain hear
what manner of instruction he would give us and by
what right he means to carry out his purpose.'
* 'After such words he asked: 'Where did you
study so far?* We answered: 'At Basel.' Then he
said : ' How is it at Basel ? Is Erasmus Rotterdamus
there yet? What does he do ?*
'"Sir,* we said, *we know nothing else than that
all is well there. Erasmus is there, also, but what he
does is unknown and hidden from all, since he keeps
himself very quiet and secret. '
"These speeches seemed very strange to us in the
horseman, that he could speak of the two Schurfs, of
Philippus and Erasmus, likewise of the need of both
the Greek and the Hebrew tongues. Furthermore, he
spoke a few Latin words between, so that it would
seem to us he was a different person from a common
horseman.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
A contemporary's description of LUIHEIU 8l
" 'Dear sirs,' he asked us, 'what do they think of
Luther in the Swiss country?'
'"Sir, there, as everywhere, there are various
opinions. Some cannot extol him enough and thank
God that He revealed His truth through him and made
known the errors ; others, above all the clergy, con-
demn him as an intolerable heretic'
"He said : ' I can imagine it well, it is the priests. '
"With such conversation we began to feel at
home, so that my companion picked up the book ly-
ing before him and opened it. It was a Hebrew psal-
ter. He laid it down again quickly, and the horseman
put it away. Then arose still more doubt as to who
he was. And my companion said : ' I would give a
finger off my hand if I understood that language.'
* You will understand it well enough if you are indus-
trious,' said the stranger; 'I also desire to learn it
better, and practise it daily.'
"In the meantime the day went down; it became
very dark, and the innkeeper came to the table. When
he heard our great desire for Mr. Luther he said:
'Dear boys, if you had been here two days ago you
would have been gratified, for here at this table he
sat, at that place,' pointing with his finger. We were
much vexed and angry that we had been delayed, and
vented our ill-humor on the muddy and bad roads
which had hindered us. Yet we said : 'We are glad,
however, that we sit in the house and at the table
where he sat.' The innkeeper laughed and went out.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
8a MARTIN LUTHER.
* 'After a little while the innkeeper called me out
before the door. I was frightened and thought of what
I might have done that was improper or might have
given offence. And the landlord said to me : ' Since
I see that you honestly desire to see and hear Luther
— it is he that sits with you.'
'' I took the words for a jest and said : ' Mine host,
you are making sport of me and want to satisfy my
desire by an illusion.' He replied: 'It is he, as-
suredly. But do not act as though you knew or rec-
ognised him.' I allowed the landlord to be right, but
could not believe it. I returned into the room and
sat down at the table. I was anxious to tell my com-
panion what the landlord said. At last I turned to
him and whispered secretly : < The landlord told me
that man was Luther.' Like myself, he would not
believe it and said : < Perhaps he said it was Hutten,
and you did not understand him aright ? ' Since the
horseman's garb and his manner also reminded me
more of Hutten, the knight, than of Luther, the
monk, I was easily persuaded that he said: 'It is
Hutten,' the beginnings of the two names sounding
alike. What I said after that, therefore, was uttered
as though I was speaking to Sir Huldrich ab Hutten,
the knight.
"During all this, there entered two merchants
who also wanted to remain over night, and after un-
dressing and laying aside their outer garments and
spurs, one of them laid by his side an unbound book.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A contemporary's description of LUTHER. 83
Martinus asked what the book was. He said : ' It is
Doctor Luther's explication of some gospels and epis-
tles, only recently printed and issued. Did you never
see it ? ' Martinus replied : * They will reach me soon. '
The landlord said : 'Now sit down at the table, we
will eat.' But we spoke and asked the landlord to be
indulgent with us and give us something apart. But
the landlord said : < My dear lads, sit at the table with
the gentlemen, I will serve you in proper manner.'
Martinus, hearing this, said : * Come with us, I will
settle the bill with the landlord.'
"During the meal, Martinus spoke many pious,
kindly discourses, so that the merchants and ourselves
attended more to his words than to the food. Among
other things, he complained with a sigh that just then
the princes and lords were assembled at the Diet at
Nuremberg on account of the Word of God, the pend-
ing controversies, and the burdens of the nation, but
were inclined to nothing more than spending their
time in costly tournaments, sleigh-rides, immoral prac-
tices, and ostentatious pageantries, whereas piety and
earnest prayers to God would be of much greater help.
*But such are our Christian princes.* Further, he
said he hoped that the truth of the Gospels would
bear more fruit among our children and posterity, who
would not be poisoned by the errors of popery but
would stand upon the clear truth and the Word of
God, than among the parents in whom error was so
deeply rooted that it could not Veil be eradicated*
Digitized by VjOOQIC
84 MARTIN LUTHEIU
* 'Afterwards the merchants also stated their own
opinions, and the elder one said: 'I am a simple,
plain layman, and not expert in these controversies,
but this I say : As the matter appears to me, Luther
must be either an angel from Heaven or a devil from
Hell. I am minded to spend ten florins for his sake
that I may confess to him, for I believe he would and
could well enlighten my conscience.' In the mean-
time the landlord came to us and said : ' Have no care
for the bill, Martinus settled for the supper for you.'
This made us very happy, not for the sake of the
money and the pleasure of the meal, but that this man
had entertained us as guests. After supper the mer-
chants arose and went into the stable to provide for
the horses. Meanwhile Martinus remained alone with
us in the room. We thanked him for his kindness
and the honor done us, and gave him to understand
that we thought he was Ulrich ad Hutten. But he
said: 'I am not he.'
''The landlord came in and Martinus said : 'I have
become a nobleman this night, for these Swiss take me
for Ulrich ad Hutten.' Said the landlord : 'You are
not he, but you are Martinus Luther.' He smiled and
said, jesting : ' They take me for Hutten and you take
me for Luther, soon I shall be Marcolfus.'^ And after
such conversation he took a tall beer glass and said,
after the fashion of the country : ' My Swiss friends,
lA popular comical figure, not nnfike Punch and Judy of modem times.
See Dit^giu ^ Solomon and Saturn (Marcolf).
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A contemporary's description of LUTHER. 85
let us drink one friendly draught for a blessing.' And
as I was about to take the glass from him he changed
the glass and offering me a glass of wine instead, said :
'You are unaccustomed to beer, drink this wine.'
With that he arose, threw the cloak over his arm and
took his leave. He offered us his hand and said :
'When you reach Wittenberg, give my love to Dr.
Jerome Schurf.' Said we: 'We shall gladly do so,
but how shall we name you that he may understand
your greeting ? Said he : * Say nothing more than
this : He who is coming sends his greeting, and he
will understand the words at once.' So he left us and
went to rest.
" The merchants returned to the room and ordered
the landlord to bring them another drink, over which
they held much conversation with respect to the guest
who had sat with them and who he might be. The
landlord intimated that he took him to be Luther, and
the merchants were soon convinced and regretted that
they had spoken awkwardly of him. They said they
would rise earlier in the morning before he rode off,
and would beg him not to be angry with them nor re-
member it with ill-feeling that they did not recognise
him. So it was done, and they found him in the morn-
ing in the stable. But Martinus replied : * You said
last night at the evening meal you would spend ten
florins on account of Luther to confess to him. If you
ever come to confess to him you will see and be sure
whether I am Martinus Luther.' Further than that
Digitized by VjOOQIC
86 MARTIN LUTHER.
he did not disclose his identity, but mounted soon
after and rode towards Wittenberg.
**The same day we travelled towards Naumburg,
and as we came to a village — it lies at the foot of a
mountain which is called Orlamunde, and the village
is named Nasshausen — there was a stream flowing
through the village which had overflowed with exces-
sive rains so that no one could ride across on horse-
back. We stopped in that village and by accident
met the two merchants at the inn, who entertained us
as guests for the sake of lluther.
*'The following Saturday, the day before the first
Sunday in Lent, we entered the house of Dr. Jerome
Schurf to deliver our letters. As we were called into
the room, lo, we found the horseman Martinus, just
as in Jena. And with him were Philippus Melanch-
thon, Justus Jodocus Jonas, Nicolaus Amsdorf, and
Dr. Augustin Schurf, who were telling him what had
happened at Wittenberg during his absence. He
greeted us and laughed, pointed with his finger and
said : ' This is Philip Melanchthon, of whom I have
told you.'"
In the ingenuous story of Kessler nothing is more
remarkable than the serene unconcern of the mighty
man who rode through Thuringia, outlawed and ac-
cursed, his heart filled with passionate anxiety for the
greatest danger threatening his doctrine — the fanati-
cism of his own partisans.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
PROBLEMS AND TASKS. 87
PROBLEMS AND TASKS.
Luther had cast aside all the authority of the
Church ; now he stood alone, shuddering ; only one
last thing was left to him — the Scripture.
The old Church had represented Christianity in a
continuous development. A living tradition of coun-
cils and decrees of the Popes, running along beside
the Scripture, had kept the faith in constant motion ;
like a convenient river, it had adapted itself to the
sharp angles of national character, of great needs of
the times. True, this lofty idea of an eternally living
organism was not preserved in its pristine purity, the
best part of its life had vanished, the empty shell only
was preserved, the ancient democratic Church had
been transformed into the irresponsible dominion of a
few, soiled with all the vices of a conscienceless aris-
tocracy, in crying opposition to reason and the pop-
ular heart. That which Luther could substitute would
set man free from a chaos of soulless malformation.
But it threatened other dangers.
What was the Bible ? Between the oldest and the
latest work of the holy book there lay, perhaps, two
thousand years. Even the New Testament was not
written by Christ Himself, not even in all cases by
such as had heard the holy doctrine from His mouth.
It was compiled long after His death. Some things
in it might have been handed down inaccurately. The
Digitized by VjOOQIC
88 MARTIN LUTHER.
whole was written in a strange language difEcult to
understand. Even the greatest intelligence incurred
the liability of misconstruction unless the grace of
God illumined the commentator even as it had illu-
mined the Apostles. The old Church had found a short
remedy, the sacrament of the priestly office gave the
required illumination, nay, the holy father even claimed
the divine power of deciding the right, although his
will might be in conflict with the Scriptures. The re-
former had nothing but his feeble human knowledge
and his prayer.
First, it was inevitable that he must employ his
reason ; even towards Holy Writ a certain amount of
criticism was necessary. It did not remain hidden
from Luther that the books of the New Testament were
of different value ; it is known that he did not esteem
The Revelation of St. John very highly, and that the
Epistle of James was held by him to be an '^ epistle of
straw." But his opposition to details never made him
doubt the whole. Immovable stood his faith that the
Holy Scripture, with the exception of a few books,
contained divine revelation down to the word and the
letter. It was to him the dearest thing on earth, the
foundation of all his knowledge ; he so completely
entered into it that he lived amidst its figures as in
the present. The more threatening the feeling of his
responsibility, the more ardent the fervor with which
he clung to the Scripture. And a strong instinct for
the rational and expedient helped him to surmount
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
PROBLEMS AND TASKS* 89
many dangers, his shrewdness had nothing of the
hairsplitting sophistry of the old teachers ; he despised
unnecessary subtleties, and, with admirable tact, would
willingly leave undetermined what appeared unessen-
tial. But unless he would become either infidel or
insane, nothing was left but to base the new doctrine
on words and conditions of civilisation which had life
fifteen hundred years before his time. And yet in
some cases he became a victim of that which his op-
ponent Eck called the black letter.
Under such compelling influences his method was
formed. If he had a question to solve, he collected
all those passages of the Scripture which seemed to
contain an answer ; he tried searchingly to understand
each passage in its context, then drew the sum of
them. That in which they agreed was placed in ad-
vance ; where they deviated from one another he mod-
estly tried to find a solution that united even the con-
flicting things. The result he fixed inwardly among
temptations, by fervent prayer.
With such a procedure he was bound, at times, to
arrive at results that could be contested even by the
ordinary human understanding. When he undertook,
in 1522, for instance, to place marriage on a new moral
foundation from the Scriptures, the reason and needs
of the people were certainly on his side in subjecting
to a sharp analysis the eighteen grounds of the spirit-
ual law for preventing or dissolving marriage, and
condemning the improper favor shown to the rich
Digitized by VjOOQIC
go MAKTIN LUTHER.
over the poor. But it was, nevertheless, odd if Luther
tried to prove from the Bible alone what degrees of
relationship were allowed or prohibited, especially as
he also referred to the Old Testament in which several
peculiar marriages were concluded without contradic-
tion from old Jehovah. Without a doubt, God had
permitted his chosen ones repeatedly to have two
wives.
It was the same method that in 1529, during the
negotiations with the followers of Zwingli, made him
so stubborn, at the time when he wrote on the table
in front of him "this is my body," and looked with a
dark frown upon the tears and the outstretched hands
of Zwingli.
Never was he more narrow, yet never more mighty;
a terrible man who had wrung his convictions from
doubt and the Devil by the most violent inward strug-
gles. It was an imperfect process, and his adversaries
directed their attacks upon it not without success.
With it his doctrine underwent the fate of all human
wisdom. But in this method there was also a strong
spiritual process in which his own reason, the culture
and popular needs of his time were asserted more
powerfully than he himself suspected. And it became
the starting-point from which conscientious research
has worked up to the highest spiritual liberty.
Together with this great trial there came to the
exiled monk on the Wartburg smaller temptations;
he had long since, by almost superhuman mental ac-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
PROBLEMS AND TASKS. QI
tivity, overcome those things which, as impulses of
the senses, were looked upon with great suspicion;
now nature reasserted itself vigorously, and he re-
peatedly asks Melanchthon to pray for him on that
score.
At this particular juncture, fate ordained that the
restless mind of Karlstadt at Wittenberg should take
up the question of the marriage of priests, and in an
essay on celibacy he came to the conclusion that priests
and monks were not bound by the vow of celibacy.
The men of Wittenberg generally assented, first Me
lanchthon, who was least hampered in regard to this
question, never having himself been consecrated and
having been married for two years. Thus there were
thrown into Luther*s soul from without thoughts and
moral problems the threads of which were destined to
stretch over his entire subsequent life. What of gen-
uine joy and worldly happiness was vouchsafed to him
thereafter depended upon the answer he found for this
question. What made it possible for him to endure
the latter years was the happiness of his home ; from
that point the flower of his rich heart was destined to
unfold. So mercifully did fate at that particular time
send to the lonely one the message which was to link
him afresh and more closely with his people.
And his treatment of this question again is charac-
teristic. His devout soul and the conservative feature
of his entire nature rebelled against the hasty and
superficial manner of Karlstadt's argument. It is safe
Digitized by VjOOQIC
ga MARTIN LUTHER.
to assume that many of the very things which he felt
within himself made him suspicious whether the Devil
was not using this delicate question to tempt the chil-
dren of God. And yet, just at that time during his
imprisonment, he felt extreme pity for the poor monks
in the restraint of the monastery. He searched the
Scriptures : the marriage of priests was easily dis-
posed of. But of the monks there was not a word in
the Bible. "The Scripture is silent, man is uncer-
tain."
Then occurred to him the ridiculous notion that
his own closest friends might marry, and he wrote to
the cautious Spalatin: ''Good God, our Wittenberg
friends want to give wives to the monks, too ! Well,
they shall not hang one about my neck," and he warns
him ironically: **Take good care that you do not
yourself marry." But the problem occupied him con-
tinually, nevertheless. A man lives fast in such great
times. Gradually, by Melanchthon's argument, and,
we may assume, after fervent prayer, he arrived at
certainty. What turned the scale, though uncon-
sciously to him, was the final conclusion that it had
become rational and necessary for a better moral foun-
dation of social life to open the monasteries. Nearly
three months he had wrestled with the question ; on
November i, 1 521, he wrote the above-mentioned let-
ter to his father.
The effect of his words upon the people was be-
yond measure; everywhere there was a stir in the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
PROBLEMS AND TASKS. 93
corridors; from nearly all monastery gates slipped
monks and nuns ; at first sinerly, in clandestine flight ;
soon, whole monasteries disbanded.
In the following spring, when Luther, with greater
care in his heart, returned to Wittenberg, the runaway
nuns and monks caused him much trouble. Secret
letters were forwarded to him from all parts, frequently
from excited nuns, who, when children, had been sent
to convents by hard-hearted parents, and now, with-
out money or protection, sought the help of the great
reformer. It was not unnatural that they crowded to
Wittenberg. There came nine nuns from the aristo-
cratic convent of Nimbschen, among them a Staupitz,
two Zeschaus, and Catharine of Bora; again there
were sixteen nuns to be cared for, and so on. He
pitied the poor people very much ; he wrote in their
behalf, and ran around to place them in respectable
families.
At times, there was too much of it for him, the
throngs of escaped monks molesting him particularly.
He complains : ''They want to marry at once and are
the most unskilled men for any work." By his bold
solution of a difficult question he gave great offence ;
he had painful sensations himself, for while among
those who were returning to civil society in a tumult
there were high-minded men, there were also coarse
and bad ones. But all those things did not confuse
him for a moment. It was his way that opposition
only made him more resolute.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
94 MARTIN LUTHER.
When in 1524 he published the story of the suffer-
ings of a nun, Florentina of Oberweimar, he repeated
in the dedication what he had preached so often:
''God often proclaims in the Scriptures that he wants
no enforced service, and no one shall become His un-
less he do so willingly and lovingly. God help us !
Why should we be so unreasonable ? Should we not
use our understanding and our ears ? I say it again,
God wants no enforced service ; I say it a third time,
I say it a hundred thousand times, God wants no en-
forced service."
Thus Luther entered the last period of his life.
His disappearance in the Thuringian forest had caused
tremendous excitement. The adversaries trembled at
the wrath which arose in the cities and in the country
against those who were called his murderers. But the
interruption of his public activity was fatal to him,
notwithstanding. As long as he was at Wittenberg,
the centre of the fight, his work, his pen had ruled
with overshadowing power over the great movement
of the spirits in South and North, now the movement
worked arbitrarily in different directions, in many
heads.
One of the oldest companions of Luther began the
confusion, Wittenberg itself became the scene of an
adventurous movement, and Luther could tarry no
longer in the Wartburg. Once before he had been in
Wittenberg secretly, now he returned there publicly,
against the wishes of the Prince-Elector. And then
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
PROBLEMS AND TASKS. 95
he began a heroic struggle against old friends and
against the conclusions drawn from his own teachings.
His work was more than that of a man. He fulmin-
ated unremittingly from the pulpit, in the study his
pen was flying. But he was unable to bring back
every apostate mind, he himself could not prevent the
mob in the cities from raging with rude irreverence
against institutions of the old Church and against
hated persons, the excitement of the people from
causing political storms, the knight from rising against
the prince, the peasant against the knight. And what
was more, he could not prevent the spiritual liberty
which he had obtained for himself and others from
producing in pious and learned men an independent
judgment with regard to faith and life, a judgment
conflicting with his own convictions. There came the
stormy years of iconoclasm, of anabaptism, of the
peasant wars, the miserable quarrel about the sacra-
ment. How often the form of Luther rose during that
time, gloomy and mighty, above the quarrelling peo-
ple, how often did the contrariness of men and secret
doubts of his own fill him with anxious care for the
future of Germany !
For, in a savage age, accustomed to kill with fire
and sword, this man conceived those spiritual battles
loftier and purer than all else. Any employment of
physical force was hateful to him, even during the
time of his greatest personal danger ; he would not be
protected by his sovereign, nay, he wanted no human
Digitized by VjOOQIC
96 MARTIN LUTHER.
protection for his doctrine. He fought with a sharp
quill against his enemies, but the onty pyre which he
lighted was for a paper ; he hated the Pope as he did
the Devily but he always preached peace and Christian
tolerance towards papists ; he suspected many of being
in secret league with the Devil, but he never burned
a witch. In all Catholic countries the fires blazed
over those who professed the new faith, even Hutten
was strongly suspected of having cut o£E the ears of
some monks ; Luther had hearty compassion for the
humiliated Tetzel and wrote him a letter of consola-
tion. So humane was his sentiment.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL COMPLICATIONS.
Obedience to the authorities as being instituted
by God was Luther's main political principle ; only
when the service of his God demanded it did contra-
diction blaze up. On his departure from Worms he
was ordered not to preach, he who had just been out-
lawed. But while he did not allow his preaching to
lag, the honest man was still filled with fear that it
might be construed as disobedience. His conception
of the constitution of the empire was still quite ancient
and quite popular. As the subject must obey the au-
thorities, so the princes and electors must obey the
Emperor according to the law of the empire.
In the person of Charles V. he took a human in-
terest throughout his life, not alone during that early
time when he greeted him as the **dear sweet youth,"
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL COMPLICATIONS. 97
even later, when he knew well that the Spanish Bur-
gundian allowed to the German Reformation no more
than political toleration. "He is pious and quiet " ;
said he of the Emperor, ''he speaks in a year not so
much as I do in a day; he is a child of fortune." He
readily praised the Emperor's moderation, modesty,
and forbearance. When he had begun to condemn
the policy of the Emperor, and in secret mistrusted
his character, he took care that among the guests
of his table the ruler of the empire was spoken of
reverentially, and said to the younger ones apologet-
ically : '' A politician cannot be so candid as we clergy-
men."
As late as 1530 it was his opinion that it was wrong
on the part of the Prince- Elector to resist the Emperor
with armed force; it was 1537 before he reluctantly
submitted to the freer view of his friends, — but still
the endangered prince must not begin the attack. So
vivid remained in the man of the people the time-
honored tradition of a firm, well-organised, federated
State at a time when the proud structure of the old
Saxon and Prankish emperors was crumbling so fast.
Yet in such loyalty to the empire there was not a
trace of a slavish disposition ; when his sovereign once
induced him to write a letter intended for publication,
his veracity rebelled against the address to the Em-
peror, ''most gracious lord," saying the Emperor was
not graciously disposed towards him. And in his fre-
quent intercourse with the nobility he showed a reck-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
gS MARTIN LUTHER.
less candor which more than once became terrible
to the courtiers. He told his own sovereign the truth,
in all humility, in such a manner as only a great char-
acter dared and only a good-hearted one could listen to.
On the whole, he thought little of the German
princes, however much he esteemed some individu-
ally. Frequent and just are his complaints of their
incapacity, their licentiousness, their vices. He also
liked to speak of the nobility with irony ; the awkward-
ness of most of them displeased him exceedingly.
And he felt a democratic aversion for the hard and
selfish lawyers who carried on the business of the
princes, striving for favor and tormenting the poor
people ; he opened to the best of them only a very
doubtful prospect of the grace of God.
On the other hand, his whole heart was with the
oppressed ; he sometimes scolded the peasants, their
stubbornness, their greed in selling grain, but he also
often praised their class, looked with hearty compas-
sion on their burdens and remembered that he origin-
ally was one of them.
But all these things were of the temporal govern-
ment; he was in the service of the spiritual. The
popular view was firmly entrenched in his mind that
two governing powers must rule the people side by
side, the power of the Church and the force of the
princes. And he was amply justified in proudly con-
trasting his province of duties and rights with tempo-
ral politics. In his spiritual domain there was public
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
POUTICAL AND SOCIAL COMPLICATIONS. 99
spirit, selfsacrificey a wealth of ideal life; in the tem-
poral government he found everywhere narrow self-
seekingy robbery, fraud, and weakness. He angrily
contended that the authorities should not presume to
direct what belonged to the minister and the auton-
omy of his congregation. He judged all politics from
the interest of his creed according to the law of the
Bible. Where the word of the Scripture seemed to
him to be endangered by temporal politics, he raised
his voice, recking not whom it hurt.
It was not his fault that he was strong and the
princes were weak, and no reproach can attach to him,
the monk, the professor, the minister, if the league
of Protestant princes stood as helpless in the face
of the shrewd diplomacy of the Emperor as a herd of
deer. He was clearly conscious that Italian politics
were not his affair ; if the active Landgrave of Hesse
on one occasion did not follow his spiritual advice,
Luther esteemed him all the more for it in secret.
''He has a head of his own, he is successful, he has
an understanding of worldly affairs.''
Since Luther's return to Wittenberg a flood of de-
mocracy was roaring among the people. Luther had
opened the monasteries, now there was a demand for
the adjustment of other social evils, the distress of
the peasants, the church tithes, the traffic in benefices,
the bad administration of the law. Luther's honest
heart sympathised with this movement. He admon-
ished and scolded the landlords and princes. But
Digitized by VjOOQIC
lOO MARTIN LUTUEfU
when the wild floods of the peasant wars began to de-
luge his work, when their bloody violence outraged
his soul and he felt that visionaries and rioters exer-
cised sway over the peasant bands and threatened
extinction to his teachings, he hurled himself against
the rude masses in the highest wrath. Fierce and
warlike sounded his appeal to the princes, the thing
most horrible to him had happened, the gospel of
love was disgraced by the arbitrary insolence of those
who called themselves his adherents.
His policy was the true one in this point also ;
there was in Germany, unfortunately, no better power
than that of the princes ; on them rested, in spite of
all, the future of the fatherland. Neither the serf-
peasantry, nor the robber knights, nor the disunited
imperial cities standing like islands in the roaring bil-
lows, afforded any guaranty. He was quite right in
the matter, but the same hard-headed, inflexible na-
ture which up to that time had made his fights against
the hierarchy so popular, was now turned against the
people itself. A cry of amazement and horror ran
through the masses. He was a traitor. He who for
eight years had been the favorite and hero of the peo-
ple became suddenly the faithless, most hated man.
Again his safety and his life were threatened ; even
five years later it was dangerous for him, on account
of the peasants, to travel <o Mansfeld to his sick
father. The fury of the masses also worked against
his doctrine, the hedge-preachers and the new apostles
Digitized by VjOOQIC
LUTHER'S MARRIAGE. lOI
treated him as a lost, depraved man. He was excom-
municated, he was outlawed, he was cursed by the
people.
LUTHER'S MARRIAGE.
Many well-meaning men had disapproved his as-
sault on celibacy and convent life. The country no-
blemen threatened to seize the outlaw in the highway
because he had destroyed the nunneries into which,
as in foundlings' homes, the legitimate children of the
poor nobility were thrown in early youth. The Ro-
man party triumphed, the new heresy was deprived of
that which had made it powerful up to that time.
Luther's life and doctrine seemed to be doomed to
destruction.
At this juncture Luther decided to marry.
For two years Catharine von Bora had lived in
the house of the city clerk, afterwards Mayor Reich-
enbach of Wittenberg, a strong, stately girl; like
many others, the forsaken daughter of a family be-
longing to the country nobility of Meissen. Twice
Luther had endeavored to secure a husband for her,
as he had, with paternal care, done for several of her
associates. At last Catharine declared she would
marry no man unless it were Luther himself or his
friend Amsdorf.
Luther was astonished, but he decided quickly.
Accompanied by Lucas Cranach, he asked for her
hand and was married on the spot. Then he invited
Digitized by VjOOQIC
I02 MARTIN LUTHER.
his friends to the wedding dinner, asked at court for
the venison which the sovereign was wont to present
to his professors at weddings, and received the table
wine as a wedding present from the city of Wittenberg.
Luther's mind at that time is a curious study. His
entire being was at the highest tension, the wild prim-
itive power of his nature worked in all directions ; he
was shaken to his inmost depths by the misery of
burned villages and the bodies of the slain which he
saw all about him. Had he been a fanatic in his ideas
he might have ended his life then in despair. But
above the stormy unrest which is perceptible in him
up to his marriage, there shone to him like a pure
light, just at that time, the conviction that he was the
guardian of divine right, and in order to defend civil
order and morals it was for him to lead the opinions
of men, not to follow them.
However violently he declaimed in special things,
he appears particularly conservative at this particular
time, more firmly resolved within himself than ever.
Besides, it is true, he was of opinion that he was not
destined to live much longer, and during many hours
he longingly awaited martyrdom. Thus he was in per-
fect accord with himself when he concluded his mar-
riage. He had convinced himself completely of the
necessity and scriptural propriety of marriage; for
the last few years he had urged all his acquaintances
to marry, finally even an old opponent, the Arch-
bishop of Mayence.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
LUTHER'S MARRIAGE. IO3
He gives two reasons himself that influenced him
in his determination to marry. He had deprived his
father of his son for many years ; it was to him like
an atonement to leave to old Hans a grandson when
he should die. There was also defiance ; the adversa-
ries triumphed in the supposed humiliation of Luther,
and all the world was offended at him ; he wanted to
give them still more offence in his good cause.
His was a vigorous nature, but there was in him
not a trace of coarse sensuality. And we may assume
that the best reason, which he confesses to no friend,
was, after all, the decisive one. For a long time the
talk of the people had known more than himself ; now
he knew himself that Catharine regarded him with
favor. ^'I am not in love nor in passion, but I like
her," he writes to one of his dearest friends.
And this marriage, concluded in opposition to the
opinion of his contemporaries and the scornful howls
of his adversaries, became an alliance to which we
owe as much as to the years when he, a clergyman of
the old Church, had borne arms for his theological
convictions. For, from that time a husband, father,
and citizen, he became also the reformer of the do-
mestic life of his nation, and those very blessings em-
anating from his days on earth, in which Protestants
and Catholics to-day have an equal share, came from
the marriage between an excommunicated monk and
a runaway nun.
For he was destined to work twenty-one laborious
Digitized by VjOOQIC
I04 MARTIN LUTHER.
years more in developing his nation, and his greatest
work, the translation of the Bible, was finished dur-
ing that time ; in this work, which he completed in
company with his Wittenberg friends, he acquired
the fullest control over the language of the people,
which by this work, for the first time, developed its
wealth and power.
We know with what grand purpose he undertook
that work, he wanted to create a book for the people,
he industriously studied forms of speech, proverbs,
and technical terms living in the mouth of the people.
The Humanists often wrote an awkward, involved
style with unwieldy sentences, a degenerate reminis-
cence of the Latin style. Now, the nation received
for daily reading a work expressing in simple words
the most profound wisdom and the best spiritual
treasures of the time.
Together with the other works of Luther, the
Bible became the foundation of the New-German lan-
guage. And this language, in which our whole liter-
ature and spiritual life found its expression, has be-
come an indestructible possession which even in the
saddest times, and, though disfigured and defaced,
has yet served to remind the several German tribes
that they are one. And even at the present time the
language of culture, poetry, and science which Luther
created is the bond that holds together all German
minds in union.
Nor did Luther render less important services for
Digitized by VjOOQIC
LUTHBR'S MARiOAGS. IO5
the civil life of the Germans. Domestic devotion,
marriage, and education of children, municipal life
and school affairs, manners, recreations, all senti-
ments of the heart, all social pleasures were conse-
crated by his teachings and writings. £ver3nvhere he
strove to set new goals and to lay deeper foundations.
Not a department of human duty about which he did
not compel the people to reflect. His influence spread
far and wide among the people by his numerous ser-
mons and short writings, and also by countless let-
ters in which he gave advice and consolation to special
inquirers.
If he urged his contemporaries unremittingly to
examine whether a desire of the heart was justified or
not, what the father owed to the child, the subject to
the authorities, the councilman to the citizens ; the
progress made through him was so great for the rea-
son that here also he emancipated the conscience of
the individual and substituted everywhere spiritual
self-control in place of external compulsion against
which selfishness had previously defiantly rebelled.
How finely he comprehended the necessity of devel-
oping children by school education, especially in the
dead languages, how warmly he recommended his be-
loved music for introduction in the schools, how great
his foresight became when he admonished the coun-
cilmen to found public libraries. And again, how con-
scientiously he sought to secure rights for the hearts
of lovers in engagements and marriages, as against
Digitized by VjOOQIC
I06 MARTIN LUTHER.
hard parental authority. His horizon, it is true, was
bounded by the words of the Scripture, but ever
through his preaching, action, scolding, there sounds
the beautiful keynote of his broadly human nature,
the need of liberty and courtesy, of love and morality.
He overthrew the old sacrament of marriage but he
shaped more highly, nobly, freely the spiritual rela-
tions between husband and wife. He attacked the
clumsy convent schools, and everywhere in village and
city, wherever his influence reached, better institu-
tions of culture for the youth grew up. He abolished
the mass and Latin church hymns ; in return, he gave
the regular sermon and the church hymn to both ad-
mirers and opponents.
The great importance which Luther's teaching ac-
quired not only in the heart of the people but in the
political affairs of the empire became apparent in Lu-
ther's life as early as nine years after the days of
Worms. At Worms he was looked upon as a soli-
tary, damnable heretic with whose death the danger-
ous, false doctrine would cease. In 1530 at the Diet
of Augsburg the princes and estates of the Empire
who had renounced their adherence to the old Church,
submitted to the Emperor a confession of faith which
became the basis of a secure political position for
Protestantism. In spite of all the clauses appended,
it was in fact the first treaty of peace which the vic-
torious new doctrine concluded with the Holy Roman
Empire.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
LUTBER^S MARRIAGE. IO7
It was a Strange dispensation that honest Luther, as
he had done at the Wartburg in years gone by, should
once more await the result in hiding at another fortified
place of his sovereign, the fortress of Coburg, in the
dress and with the beard of a knight, and once more
he dated his letters mysteriously from the wilderness,
or from the kingdom of the birds, encouraging Me-
lanchthon to remain steadfast. For, while his friends
and fellow- laborers were engaged in composing the
Confession of Augsburg, he who was still an outlaw
could not be led into the hands of Catholic lords or
under the eyes of the Emperor who had outlawed him.
This sentence of outlawry of 1521 had, however,
lost its force. A few months after it had been pro-
nounced, the growing excitement of the people and
the immoderate zeal of other malcontents forced the
enemies of Luther to admit that it would be very for-
tunate if Luther, who had disappeared, were still alive.
Since that time he had risen against the socialistic
agitation among the people with equal might as against
popery ; and by the magic of his strong character as
well as the wealth of his soulful sentiment he had done
so much for law and order among the people that even
his adversaries felt some of the good effects.
He had met with great successes, but at the same
time he found the limits of his influence. At Worms
he was the only one, the true representative of the
popular conscience and the spiritual leader of the
whole powerful movement which was rising in the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
I08 MARTIN LUTHBR.
people. In 1530 he was the head and leader of a great
party, but only a party, beside which other factions
and parties were arising. Even within the old Church
the respect for public opinion had become greater,
and faith was more sincere and heartfelt. Beside Lu-
ther's, the teachings of Zwingli had also gained
ground, and among the lower classes the ideas of the
Anabaptist worked against him as against the struc-
ture of the old Church.
Nor did Luther himself escape change. He was
no longer the martyr longing for death, but the pru-
dent adviser of princes and a zealous, severe architect
of his new Church. And the man who at the Wart-
burg wrestled in scruples of conscience over the cel-
ibacy of monks, was writing not only explanations of
Biblical texts but loving letters, full of good humor,
to his own home, to the companions of his table, and
to his little son, about the diet of jackdaws that
crowded around the towers of the fortress of Coburg,
and about a beautiful heavenly garden in which pious
children sing and play, ride horses with golden reins,
and shoot with the crossbow. The apostle of the new
gospel became a great spiritual paterfamilias to the
people.
LUTHER'S PRIVATE LIFE.
As the years advanced, Luther felt ever more keenly
the divine nature of all that the world offered which
was sweet, good, and hearty. In that sense he was
Digitized by VjOOQIC
LUTHER'S PRIVATE LIFE. IO9
always pious and always wise, both out in nature and
in his innocent pleasantry with his companions, while
teasing his wife, or holding his children in his arms.
Full of joy at its splendor he stood before a tree hang-
ing full of fruit : << If Adam had not fallen, we should
always have admired all trees." Astonished, he took
a big pear in his hand : '' Lo, six months ago it was
lower under the ground than it is long and big now,
and was hidden in the extreme end of the root. These
minute and least observed creatures are the greatest
wonders. God is in the smallest creature, as in the
leaf of a tree or a blade of grass."
Two little birds made a nest in Dr. Luther's gar-
den and flew home in the evening, often frightened by
passers-by; he called to them : *'0h, you dear little
birds, do not fly away, I love you with all my heart if
you could only believe me. But thus we also lack
faith in our God."
He took great pleasure in the company of honest
men ; he then drank wine merrily, and the conversa-
tion coursed lively over big things and small. He
judged with splendid humor his enemies and acquaint-
ances, laughed and told merry stories, and when he
got into discussions would rub his hands over his knee,
which gesture was peculiar to him. Often he would
sing to himself, play the lute, or direct a chorus.
Whatever made men honorably merry was pleasing to
him, his favorite art was music ; he judged leniently
of dancing and — fifty years before Shakespeare — spoke
Digitized by VjOOQIC
no MARTIN LUTHER.
benevolently of comedy, for he said that it teaches like
a mirror how each should conduct himself.
When he sat together with Melanchthon, it was
Master Philip, the mild, the scholar, who would add
a wise qualification to the too daring assertions of his
strong friend. If there was talk of rich people and
Frau Catharine could not refrain from observing long-
ingly : **Had my lord been so inclined he could have
become very rich," Melanchthon answered gravely :
*'That is impossible, for those who work for the gen-
eral good cannot follow their own advantage."
There was one subject, however, about which the
two men were apt to get into disputes. Melanchthon
was very fond of astrology, while Luther looked upon
that science with sovereign contempt. On the other
hand, by his method of Biblical exegesis — and also,
by secret political cares — Luther had reached the con-
viction that the end of the world was near at hand,
which, again, appeared very doubtful to the learned
Melanchthon. So, when Melanchthon began to speak
about celestial signs and aspects and explained Lu-
ther's successes by the fact that he was born under
the sign of the sun, Luther exclaimed : *' I care not
so much about your Sol. I am a peasant's son. My
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were honest
peasants." — *'Yes," replied Melanchthon, "in the
village, too, you would have been a leader, either
chief officer of the village or head farm-hand over the
others.'* — *'But," exclaimed Luther triumphantly, "I
Digitized by VjOOQIC
LUTHER*S PRIVATE LIFE. Ill
have become a bachelor of arts, a master, a monk, —
that was not written in the stars ; then I pulled the
Pope's hair and he pulled mine, I took a nun to wife
and begat children with her. Who saw those things
in the stars? " And again Melanchthon continued in
his astrological interpretations, beginning about Em-
peror Charles and declared it was ordained that he
should die in 1584. Then Luther burst out violently :
" The world will not endure as long as that. For if
we beat back the Turk, the prophecy of Daniel will
be fulfilled and the end at hand. Then the day of
judgment is surely at our doors."
When Melanchthon fell dangerously ill, Luther
visited him. On seeing the signs of approaching death
in the face of his dear friend and co-worker, Luther
turned toward the window and prayed that the Lord
should spare his faithful servant's life. Then he ad-
dressed the patient, saying: "Be of good cheer,
Philip, thou shalt not die ! " Melanchthon recovered
and Luther wrote triumphantly that " with God's help
he would have brought the Master Philip back from
the grave."
How amiable he is as the father of his family !
When his little children stood at the table and looked
longingly at the fruit and peaches he said: "Who
wants to see the image of one that is happy in hope,
he has here the true counterfeit. Oh, that we might
behold the day of doom thus merrily 1 Adam and
Eve no doubt had much better fruit, ours are mere
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
112 MARTIN LUTHER.
crab-apples by comparison. The serpent, too, I think,
was then a most beautiful creature, kindly and charm-
ing ; it still wears its little crown, but after the curse
it lost its feet and its handsome body." So he watched
his little son of three years playing and talking to him-
self : <' This child is like a drunken man, it knows not
that it lives, and yet it lives securely and merrily on,
skipping and jumping. Such children like to be in
large wide apartments where they have room." And
he drew the child to him : *' You are our Lord's little
fool, under his grace and forgiveness of sins, not under
the law ; you are not afraid, you are secure and care
about nothing ; as you act, is the uncorrupted way.
Parents are always fondest of the youngest children ;
my little Martin is my dearest treasure, such little
children require most the care and love of the parents.
Hence, the love of parents always descends in the
simplest way. How must Abraham have felt when he
was about to sacrifice his youngest and dearest son ?
He could not have said anything about it to Sarah.
That errand must have been hard to him."
His beloved daughter Magdalen lay at the point of
death, and he complained: "I love her very dearly,
but, dear Lord, since it is Thy will, that Thou wilt
take her hence, I will gladly know her to be with Thee.
Magdalen, my little daughter, you would gladly re-
main here with your father and you will also gladly
go to the Father beyond?" And the child said : "Yes,
dear father, as God wills."
Digitized by VjOOQIC
LUTHER'S PRIVATE UFE. II5
And when she died, the father knelt by the bedside
weeping bitterly, and prayed that God might save
her. And she went to her last sleep in her father's
arms.
And when the people came to help bury the body,
and spoke to the Doctor according to the custom, he
said: "I am happy in the spirit, but the flesh is not
satisfied ; this parting vexes one above all measure.
It is strange to know that she is in peace and happi-
ness, and yet to be so sad. *'
His dominus or lord Catharine, as he was fond of
calling his wife in letters to friends, speedily developed
into an efficient housewife. And she had no little
trouble. Little children, the husband often ailing, a
number of boarders, teachers and poor students, an
ever open house, from which scholarly or noble guests
were seldom absent ; and with all that, a scanty house-
hold and a husband who would rather give than receive
and who, in his zeal, on one occasion, when she was
lying in childbed, even took the silverware given to
the children by their god-parents in order to give alms.
In 1527, Luther was unable to advance eight florins
to his former prior and friend Briesger. Sadly he
wrote to him: ''Three little silver cups (wedding
presents) are in pawn for fifty florins, the fourth has
been sold, the year has brought debts of one hundred
florins. Lucas Cranach refuses to take my bail any
longer so that I may not ruin myself completely.''
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Z X 4 MAKTIN LUTHBIL
Sometimes Luther declined presents, even such
as were offered by his sovereign ; but it appears that
his regard for wife and children instilled in him some
practical ideas in later years. When he died his
estate amounted, approximately, to eight or nine
thousand florins, comprising a little country place, a
big garden, and two houses. It was surely the merit
of Frau Catharine principally.
From the way in which Luther treated her we see
how happy his domestic life was. If he made allu-
sions to the profuse talk of women he had little cause,
for he was not a man himself by any means that could
be called chary of words. If she is heartily glad to be
able to serve up all kinds of fish from the little lake in
their garden, the doctor in turn is happy at hier joy
and does not fail to append to it a pleasing reflexion
on the happiness of modest wants. Or, if reading the
psalter becomes too tedious for her and she replies
that she hears enough of sanctification, that she reads
much every day and can also speak about it, but that
God only wants her to act accordingly, the doctor at
this sensible answer sighs : << So does dissatisfaction
with the Word of God begin ; there will come many
new books, and the Scriptures will be thrown into the
comer again."
But this firm relationship of two good persons
was, for a long time, not without secret suffering. We
can only surmise at what was gnawing at the heart of
the wife if, as late as 1527, in a dangerous illness.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
Luther's private life. 115
Luther took a last farewell of her with the words :
"You are my honored and legitimate wife, so you
shall assuredly esteem yourself."
Similarly as with those dear to him, Luther also
conversed with the high powers of his faith. All the
good figures from the Bible were to him like true
friends, his vivid imagination had shaped their na-
tures familiarly and he loved to picture to himself
their circumstances with the ingenuousness of a child.
When Veit Dietrich asked him what kind of a person
the Apostle Paul might have been, Luther quickly re-
plied : '^ He was an insignificant, slim little man like
Philippus Melanchthon." The Virgin Mary was to
him a graceful picture. '' She was a fine girl,'* he said
admiringly, ''she must have had a good voice." And
the Saviour he loved best to imagine as a child in the
house of his parents, carrying the meal to the father
in the wood-yard, and Mary asking as he staid too
long: ''Where have you been so long, my little
one?" The Saviour should not be imagined on the
rainbow with a halo, not as the executor of the law —
that conception is too lofty and terrible for man —
only as the poor sufferer living among sinners and
dying for them.
His God, also, was to him, at all times, master of
the house and father. He loved to delve into the
economy of nature. He indulges in astonished reflex-
ion how much wood God must create. "No one can
calculate what God needs only to feed the sparrows
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Il6 MARTIN LUTHER.
and useless birds ; they cost Him more in a year than
the income of the King of France. And then, think
of all the other things."
''God understands all trades. In his tailoring he
makes for the stag a coat that lasts a hundred years.
As a shoemaker he gives him shoes for his feet, and
in the sun he is a cook."
** He could well get rich if he desired, if he stopped
the sun, enclosed the air, if he threatened death to
the Pope, the Emperor, the bishops, and doctors, un-
less they paid him a hundred thousand florins at once.
But he does not do so, and we are ungrateful beasts."
And he seriously reflects where the food for so
many people comes from. Old Hans Luther had as-
serted there were more men than sheaves of grain ;
the doctor, on the contrary, believed that more sheaves
grew than men, but more men than shocks of grain ;
a shock yields scarcely a bushel and a man cannot
live on that for a year.
Even a heap of manure invited cordial reflexion :
"God has to clear away as much as he has to create.
If he did not continually clean up, men would long
since have filled up the world with refuse."
And if God often punishes the pious more severely
than the impious, he acts like a serious master of the
house who thrashes his son more frequently than the
hired servant. But while he silently gathers a treas-
ure as an inheritance for the son, the hired man is at
last discharged. And cheerfully he draws the conclu-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
LUTHER'S PRIVATE LIFE. II7
sion: ** If our Lord and Master can pardon me for
having vexed Him for well nigh twenty years by read-
ing masses, He can also put to my credit that at times
I have quaffed a good drink in His honor. May the
world construe it as it pleases.''
He also wondered a great deal that God was so
angry with the Jews. '*For fifteen hundred years they
have been praying violently, with earnestness and
great zeal, as their little books of prayer show, and all
through that time He does not answer them with a lit-
tle word. If I could pray as they pray I would give
two hundred florins* worth of books. It must be a
great, unutterable wrath. O dear Lord, rather pun-
ish with pestilence than keep so silent."
Like a child, Luther prayed every morning and
evening, often in the day, even during meals. Prayers
which he knew by heart he repeated again and again
with fervent devotion, preferring the Lord's Prayer ;
then again he recited to God the little catechism ; he
always carried the psalter with him, which served
him as his book of prayer. When he was in passion-
ate anxiety his prayer became a storm, a wrestling
with God, the power, greatness, and holy simplicity
of which it is difficult to compare with other human
emotions. At such times he was the son lying in
despair at the feet of his father, or the faithful servant
imploring his sovereign. For his conviction was un-
changeable that it was possible to influence the res-
olutions of God by prayers and admonitions. And
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Il8 MARTIN LUTHER.
thus in his prayer there is an alternate outpouring of
emotion and complaint, nay, serious exhortations.
STRUGGLES WITH THE DEVIL.
As God was the source of all that was good, so to
Luther the Devil was the cause of all that was noxious
and evil. Luther came from a cottage in which there
was still felt, as in the ancient times, the awful pres-
ence of the spirits of the pine forests and the sombre
cleft of the earth which was held to give access to the
veins of metal in the mountains. Surely the imagina-
tion of the boy was often engaged with obscure tradi-
tions of ancient heathen beliefs. He was accustomed
to feel supernatural powers in the terrors of nature as
in the lives of men. When he turned monk these re-
collections of childhood darkened into the Biblical
idea of the Devil, but the busy tempter who lurked
everjrwhere in the life of man always retained, in Lu-
ther's belief, somewhat of the nature of the spirits of
ancient Teutonic heathendom.
In Luther's Table Talks, which were taken down
by his companions, the Devil causes the dangerous
storms, while an angel produces the pleasant winds,
even as in ancient Teutonic belief a giant eagle sat at
the boundary of the world and caused the winds by
flapping his wings. Or, he sits under a bridge in the
form of a nixie and draws girls into the water whom
he forces into marriage. He serves in the convent as
a domestic sprite, blows the fire into a blaze as a gob-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
STRUGGLES WITH THE DEVIL. IIQ
lin, as a dwarf he puts his changelings into the cradles
of man, as a nightmare he misleads the sleepers to
climb the roof, and as a noisy hobgoblin tumbles
things around in the rooms. By this last thing he
particularly disturbed Luther several times.
The ink spot in the Wartburg is not sufficiently
authenticated, but Luther did tell of a disagreeable
noise which Satan made at that place by night with a
bag of hazel nuts.
In the monastery at Wittenberg, also, when Luther
studied in the refectory at night the Devil kept up a
noise in the church hall below him until Luther packed
up his books and went to bed. Afterwards he was
vexed because he did not defy the << buffoon.^
He did not care much about this kind of deviltry.
He called those which manifested themselves in such
a way bad devils. He held that there were innumer-
able devils. <<Not all of them are little devils, but
there are land devils and devil princes who are experi-
enced and have practised for a very long time, over
five thousand years, and have become most shrewd
and cunning." *'We," he said, "have the big devils,
who are doctors of divinity ; the Turks and papists
have bad and petty devils, who are not theological but
juridical devils." Everything bad on earth, all dis-
eases came from them.
Luther had a strong suspicion that the dizziness
which troubled him for a long time was not natural.
As to fires, <^ wherever a fire blazes up, there is always
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Ite MARTIN LUTHER.
a little devil who blows into the flame. Failure of
crops and war — "and if God had not given us the
dear holy angels for guardians and arquebusiers who
are drawn up about us like a bulwark of waggons, it
would soon be all over with us."
Being quick to picture characteristic things in de-
tail, he knew that the Devil was haughty and could
not bear to be treated with contempt. He therefore
often gave the advice to drive him ofl by ridicule and
mocking questions. Satan was also a mournful spirit
and could not tolerate cheerful music.
The most terrible work of the Devil, according to
Luther, was that which he did within the human soul.
There he inspired not only impure thoughts, but also
doubt, melancholy, and sadness. All that he uttered
so firmly and cheerfully first weighed with fearful force
on Luther's sensitive conscience. At night, especi-
ally, when he awoke, the Devil stood sneering at his
couch and whispered terrifying things to him, and his
mind struggled for liberty, often in vain, for a long
time. And it is remarkable how this son of the six-
teenth century proceeded in such internal struggles.
Sometimes a certain gesture by which in those days
both prince and peasant expressed sovereign contempt
helped where nothing else would help. But his rising
good humor did not always set him free. Every new
research into the Scripture, every important sermon
on a new subject threw him into fresh struggles of
conscience. At such times he would become so excited
Digitized by VjOOQIC
STRUGGLES WITH THE DEVIL. 121
that his mind was incapable of methodical thought,
and he would live in fear for days at a time. While
the question of monks and nuns occupied him, he
found a passage in the Bible which, as he thought in
his excitement, proved him in the wrong. His heart
sank in his bosom ; he was almost strangled by the
Devil. Bugenhagen happening to visit him, Luther
led him out into the hallway and showed him the
threatening passage. And Bugenhagen, probably
himself infected by the hasty manner of his friend,
also began to doubt, without suspecting the torments
which Luther suffered. Then, for the first time, Lu-
ther became frightened. A terrible night passed.
Next morning Bugenhagen entered once more. "I
am very angry,'' he said, <<I have just examined the
text carefully, au^ find the passage has altogether a
different meaning." ^<And it is true,'' Luther related
later, <<it was a ridiculous argument. Yes, ridiculous
for him who is in possession of his senses and not in
temptation. "
He often complained to his friends of the terrors
of these struggles which the Devil caused him. ^<He
never was so fearful and angry from the beginning as
he is now at the end of the world. I feel him very
plainly. He sleeps closer to me than my Katie — that
is, he gives me more unrest than she does joy."
Luther did not weary of calling the Pope the Anti-
christ, and the papal practices devilish. But upon
closer examination there will be discovered, even back
V
Digitized by VjOOQIC
laa MARTIN LUTHSR.
of this hatred of the Devil, that indelible piety in
which the loyal soul of the man was bound to the old
Church. What became scruples to him were often
only pious recollections from the time of his youth,
which stood in violent opposition to the changes he
had undergone as a man.
THE TRAGIC ELEMENT IN LUTHER'S LIFE.
No man is transformed entirely by the great
thoughts and acts of his later life as a man. We are
not made quite new by new activity ; our inner life is
made up of the sum of all the thoughts and emotions
that we have ever had. He who is chosen by fate to
create the greatest new things by destroying great
things that are old, will destroy and ruin, at the same
time, part of his own life. He must violate duties to
fulfil greater duties. The more conscientious he is,
the more deeply will he feel in his inmost nature the
incision he has made into the order of the world.
That is the secret pain, nay, the repentance, of every
great historical character. There have been few mor-
tals who felt this pain so deeply as Luther. And the
great thing in him is just this, that he was never pre-
vented by such pain from doing the boldest acts. To
us, however, this appears as a tragic element in his
inner life.
And another tragic element, the most fateful for
him, lay in the attitude which he was compelled him-
self to occupy with reference to his own teachings.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE TRAGIC ELEMENT IN LUTHER'S LIFE. 12$
He had left to his people only the authority of the
Scripture ; with fervor he clutched its words as the
only safe anchor for the human race. Before him,
the Pope and his hierarchy had interpreted, miscon-
strued, supplemented the words of the Scripture ; now
he was placed in a similar position. Together with a
circle of dependent friends, he was compelled to as-
sume the prerogative of rightly understanding the
words of the Scripture and applying them properly to
the life of his time. It was a superhuman task, and
he who took it upon himself must of necessity become
the victim of some of the evils against which he had
himself made such a grand fight in the Catholic
Church.
Firmly linked and brazen was the structure of his
mind ; he was created a ruler if ever mortal man was,
but the very gigantic and demon-like quality of his
will must at times make him a tyrant. If, neverthe-
less, on several important occasions, he practised tol-
eration, either by self-restraint or with inward free-
dom, it was but the happy influence of his good nature
that made itself felt. But not infrequently he became
the pope of the Protestants. There was no choice for
him or for his people.
In recent times, he has been blamed for having
done so little to invite the co-operation of the laity by
a Presbyterian constitution. Never was reproach more
unjust. What was possible in Switzerland with vigor-
ous, free communities of peasants, was entirely im-
Digitized by VjOOQIC
124 MARTIN LUTHER.
practicable in Germany. The citizens of the bigger
cities alone possessed the intelligence and strength to
control the Protestant clergy ; but almost nine-tenths
of the Evangelical denomination consisted of down-
trodden farming people, who were, as a rule, indiffer-
ent and obstinate and had become savage since the
peasant wars. The new Church was obliged to force
its discipline upon them as upon neglected children.
Whoever doubts these assertions, may look at the
report of inspections and observe the incessant com-
plaints of the various reformers at the rudeness of
their poor congregations.
But still other things pressed upon the great man.
The ruler of the souls of the German people sat in a
little town among poor university professors and stu-
dents, among feeble citizens of whom he often had
occasion to complain. He was not spared the incon-
veniences of life in a little provincial town, the dis-
tasteful disputes with petty scholars and clumsy neigh-
bors ; and there was much in his nature that made
him particularly irritable at such things. No man car-
ries in himself with impunity the consciousness of
being a preferred instrument of God; he who lives
thvs no longer fits into the narrow and small structure
of civil society.
Had not Luther been, at the bottom of his heart,
modest, and in intercourse with others infinitely good-
natured, he must have seemed insufferable to the sober
people of common sense who stocd cool beside him.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE TRAGIC ELEMENT IN LUTHER'S LIFE. 1 25
Thus it happened only occasionally that he had a vio-
lent conflict with the citizens, the municipal author-
ities, the legal faculty of his university, the councilors
of his sovereign. He was not always right, but he
almost invariably carried his point against them, for
seldom did any one dare defy his ponderous wrath.
. In addition, he was a victim of severe bodily ail-
/ ments. During the last years of his life their frequent
recurrence had exhausted even his immense vitality ;
he felt it most painfully and prayed incessantly to his
God to take him unto himself. He was not yet an
old man in years, but he appeared old to himself, old
and hoary, and not at home in a strange terrestrial
world. These particular years, not rich in great events,
made difficult by political and municipal quarrels,
/ filled with bitterness and hours of mourning, should
All with sympathy all who contemplate the life of the
great man without prejudice. The blaze of his life
had warmed his entire people, called forth in millions
the beginnings of a higher human development, and
the blessings remained to millions. He felt at last
little else himself than the torments. Once he had
hoped joyfully to die as a martyr, now he desired the
repose of the grave like a persistent, weary workn^n
of many years. That, also, is a tragic fate.
< But his greatest pain lay in the attitude which he
< himself was forced to take toward his own doctrine.
He had founded a new church on his pure gospel, had
given incomparably greater worth to the mind and
Digitized by VjOOQIC
ia6 MARTIN LUTHER.
conscience of the people. About him blossomed a
new life, increased prosperity, many valuable arts,
painting and music, comfortable enjoyment of life,
finer culture among the citizen classes. And yet there
was something in the air, weird and boding destruc-
tion. The rulers were in fierce discord, foreign powers
on the march against the people, the Emperor from
Spain, the Pope from Rome, the Turk from the Medi-
terranean ; the visionaries and rioters powerful, the
hierarchy not yet fallen. His very gospel, had it ce-
mented the nation together for greater unity and
^ power ? Greater was the discord become, upon the
, worldly interests of certain princes would the future
of his church depend. And he knew even the best
ones among them. Something horrible was approach-
ing, the Scripture was about to be fulfilled, the day of
doom was at hand. After that, however, God will
build a new world, more beautiful, splendid, and pure,
full of peace and bliss, a world in which there would
no more be a Devil, where every human soul would
find more pleasure in the flowers and fruit of the new
trees of Heaven than the present generation takes in
gold and silver, where the finest of the arts, music,
would sound in tones much more enchanting than the
most magnificent song of good chanters in this world.
There the good would find all their dear ones again
whom they had lost here below.
The yearning of the human heart for ideal purity
<)f existence grew ever more irresistible in him. If he
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THE TRAGIC ELEMENT IN LUTHER'S LIFE. 127
expected the end of the world it was a faint recollec-
tion of the people from its remotest antiquity still
hanging in the mental sky of the new reformer. And
yet it was, at the same time, a prophetic foreboding of
the near future. It was not the end of the world that
was preparing, but the Thirty Years' War.
Thus Luther died.
When the hearse with Luther's body drove through
the Thuringian lands all the bells tolled in village and
city, and people crowded sobbing around his cofl&n.
It was a good part of the strength of the people that
was buried with this man. And Philip Melanchthon
said in the church of the castle at Wittenberg over the
body : "Every one who understood him aright must
witness that he was a very kind man, in all speech
gracious, kind, and lovable, and not at all forward,
stormy, self-willed, or quarrelsome. And yet there
was an earnestness and bravery in his words and ac-
tions, as should be in such a man. His heart was
true and free of guile. The severity which he used in
his writings against enemies of the doctrine came not
from a quarrelsome or spiteful mind, but from great
earnestness and zeal for the truth. He showed great
courage and manliness and was not frightened by a
little rushing sound. He was not intimidated by
threats, danger, or terror. He was also of such high
and keen understanding that he alone could, in con-
fused, obscure, and difficult disputes, see quickly what
was to be advised and done. Nor was he, as some
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Xa8 MARTIN LUTHSR.
perhaps have thought, so inattentive as not to have
learned how it stood everywhere about the govern-
ment. He knew right well how the government was
constituted, and paid attention with special diligence
to the minds and wishes of the people with whom he
had to do. But we should keep this, our dear father,
in our memories steadily and forever and never leave
him from our hearts."
Such was Luther. A titanic nature, his mind hard
to move and sharply limited, his will powerful and
. well tempered, his morality pure, his heart full of love.
Because after him no other man arose strong enough
to be a leader of the nation, the German people lost
their dominion on the earth for centuries. But the spir-
itual supremacy of the German race rests upon him.
But Luther's influence is not limited to the history of
his own people ; he is the central figure of the age of
the Reformation, and his spirit is still moving in the
life of all the Protestant nations.
A LETTER OF LUTHER'S.
To let Luther speak for himself we publish here
a letter to the Prince-Elector Frederick the Wise,
written in those days in which Luther had his whole
strength most powerfully concentrated. The prudent
Prince had ordered him to remain at the Wartburg,
as he could not protect him at Wittenberg, for the
angry Duke of Saxony, his cousin, would at once insist
Digitized by VjOOQIC
A LSTTER OF LUTHER's. 1 29
upon executing the sentence against the outlawed Lu-
ther. Luther wrote thus to his sovereign :
"Most serene and august Prince-Elector, most
gracious Lord: — Your Princely Grace's writing and
gracious warning reached me Friday evening, when I
meant to ride away Sunday morning. That your
Princely Grace has the very best intentions, requires
neither proof nor witness for me, for I hold myself
convinced thereof as far as human knowledge goes.
"But in my a£fair, most gracious lord, I answer
thus : Your Princely Grace knows, or, if you do not
know, I herewith make known to you, that I have the
Gospel, not from men, but alone from Heaven, through
our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I could well have praised
and written myself a servant and evangelist, which I
mean to do from this time forward. That I offered
myself for hearing and judgment, however, was done
not because I doubted the truth, but from excessive
humility, to win over the others. I have done enough
for your Princely Grace by having vacated my place
this year to please your Princely Grace. For the Devil
knows very well that I did it through no fear. He
saw my heart well when I arrived at Worms, for had
I known that as many devils were in wait for me as
there are tiles on the roofs, I should still have leaped
among them with joy.
"Now, Duke George is very unlike even to a single
devil. And since the Father of inscrutable mercy has
by the Gospel made us joyful masters over all devils
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Z30 MARTIN LUTHER.
and death and has given us the wealth of confidence
that we may say to him, 'Dearly beloved Father/ your
Princely Grace may yourself conjecture that it would
be the highest disgrace to such a Father if we did not
have confidence in Him that we are also masters of
Duke George's wrath. As for myself, I know well I
would ride right into his Leipsic — ^your Princely Grace
will pardon my foolish speech — though it should, for
nine days, rain only Dukes George, and each one was
nine times as furious as this one. He thinks my Mas-
ter Christ a man wattled together of straw, which this
my master and myself may well suffer for a while. But
I will not conceal from your Princely Grace that I
have prayed and wept for Duke George not once but
very often that God might enlighten him. I will pray
and weep once more, afterwards nevermore. And I
beg your Princely Grace will also help and have pray-
ers said that we may turn from him the misfortune
which, O Lord God ! is moving upon him without
intermission. I might strangle Duke George quickly
with a word if that would end the matter.
''This is written to your Princely Grace in the
thought that you know that I am coming to Witten-
berg under much higher protection than that of the
Prince-Elector. Nor is it in my mind to require pro-
tection from your Princely Grace. Nay, I deem I
could protect your Princely Grace more than you
could protect me. Even if I knew your Princely Grace
could and would protect me, I should not come ; in
Digitized by VjOOQIC
A LETTER OF LUTHER'S. I3I
this matter no sword can either counsel or help ; God
must here work alone without any human assistance.
Hence, he who believes best will here protect best.
"Since, then, I feel that your Princely Grace is
still very weak in the faith, I can nowise regard your
Princely Grace as the man who could protect or save
me.
"Since your Princely Grace desires to know what
to do in this matter, particularly as you think you
have done far too little, I answer most humbly your
Princely Grace has already done entirely too much
and ought to do nothing. For God will not and can-
not su£fer your care and action or mine. He wants it
left to Himself and none other. Your Princely Grace
may govern yourself accordingly.
"If your Princely Grace believe this, you will be
secure and have peace ; if you do not believe, still I
believe and must allow the lack of faith of your
Princely Grace to torment itself with that care which
all who lack faith justly suffer. Since, then, I will not
follow your Princely Grace, you will be excused be-
fore God should I be captured or killed. Before men
your Princely Grace should conduct yourself in this
wise. As a prince-elector you should be obedient to
authority and allow imperial majesty to do in your
cities and lands in regard to life and property as is
proper according to the laws of the empire, and must
not defend yourself or resist, nor seek opposition or
any obstacle against that power should it want to take
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Z32 MARTIN LUTHBR.
or kill me. For no one shall break that power but
He alone that instituted it, otherwise it is rebellious
and is against God. I hope, however, they will use
reason and understand that your Princely Grace was
bom in too lofty a cradle to become my jailor. If your
Princely Grace leave the gate open and observe the
safe-conduct of the Prince-Elector, if the enemies
themselves come to fetch me, or their emissaries, your
Princely Grace will have done enough to satisfy obe-
dience. They cannot require more of your Princely
Grace than that they want to learn of the whereabouts
of Luther from your Princely Grace. And that they
shall have without care, labor, or danger to your
Princely Grace. For Christ did not teach me to be a
Christian to the injury of another. Should they be so
unreasonable, however, as to order that your Princely
Grace yourself lay hands on me, I shall then tell you
what is to be done. I will secure your Princely Grace
from injury and danger of body, goods, and soul in
my cause, whether your Princely Grace believe this
or not.
"So I commend your Princely Grace to the mercy
of God ; we will discuss further measures when it be-
comes necessary. For I have made this writing ready
hurriedly that your Princely Grace may not be seized
with sadness at the rumor of my arrival, for I must
and shall become a solace to all and not an injury if
I would be a true Christian. He is another than Duke
George with Whom I am treating; He knows me
Digitized by VjOOQIC
A LETTER OF LUTHER'S. 1 33
quite well, and I know Him not ill. If your Princely
Grace had faith you would see the glory of God. But
because you do not yet believe, you have not yet seen
anything. God be loved and praised forevermore.
Amen.
''Given at Borna, in presence of the guide on Ash
Wednesday, A. D. 1522.
"Your Princely Grace's humble servant
"Martin Luther."
Digitized by VjOOQIC
CATALOGUE OF PUBLICATIONS
OF THB
OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.
COPE, E. D.
THE PRIMARY FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION,
lai cats. Pp., zvi, 347. Cloth, 9a.oo, net
MULLER, F. MAX.
THREE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF
THOUGHT.
With a correspondence on "Thought Without Words," between F.
Max Mailer and Francis Galton, the Duke of Argyll, George J. Ro-
manes and others. 138 pages. Cloth, 75 cents. Paper, 35 cents.
THREE LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE.
The Oxford University Extension Lectures, with a Supplement, " My
Predecessors." iia pages, and Edition. Cloth, 75 cents. Paper, 25c.
ROMANES, GEORGE JOHN.
DARWIN AND AFTER DARWIN.
An Exposition of the Darwinian Theory and a Discussion of Post
Darwinian Questions. Two Vols., $3.00. Singly, as follows:
X. The Darwinian Thbort. 46opaffe8. las illustrations. Cloth, fa.00.
a. Post-Darwinian QuBSTioNS. Efd. by C. L. Morgan. Pp.338. CI. (1.50.
AN EXAMINATION OF WEISMANNISM.
336 pages. Cloth, fi.oo. Paper, 35c.
fGHTS —
THOUGHTS ON RELIGION.
Edited by Charles Gore, M. A., Canon of Westminster. Third Edition.
Pages, 184. Cloth, gilt top, $1.35.
RIBOT, TH.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTENTION.
THE DISEASES OF PERSONALITY.
THE DISEASES OF THE WILL.
Authorised translations. Cloth, 75 cents each. Paper, 35 cents. FuL
sett cloth, fi.7S, net,
MACH, ERNST.
THE SCIENCE OF MECHANICS.
A Critical and Historical Exposition of its Principlbs. Translated
by T. J. McCoRMACK. 350 cuts. 534 pages. 5^ m., gilt top. (3.50.
POPULAR SCIENTIFIC LECTURES.
313 pages. 44 cuts. Cloth, gilt top. Net, f i.oo.
THE ANALYSIS OF THE SENSATIONS.
Pp. ao8. Cloth, 91.35, net.
GOODWIN, REV. T. A.
LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO.
As Indicated by the Song of Solomon. Pp. 41. Boards, 500.
HOLYOAKE, G. J.
ENGLISH SECULARISM. A Confession of Belief.
Pp. X46. Cloth, 50c., net.
CORNILL, CARL HEINRICH.
THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL.
Popular Sketches from Old Testament History. Pp., aoo. Cloth, Si.oa
THE RISE OF THB PEOPLE OF ISRAEL.
See Epitomes tf Three Sciences^ below.
BINET, ALFRED.
THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF MICRO-ORGANISMS.
Authorised translation. 135 pages. Cloth, 75 cents ; Paper, 35 cents.
ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS.
Studies in Experimental Psychology. 93 pages. Paper, 15 cents.
TOLSTOI, COUNT LEO.
CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM.
In preparation.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Digitized by VjOOQIC
The Religion of Science Library
A collection of standard works of The Open Court Press, issued bi-
monthly. Yearly, $1.50; single numbers, 15, 25, 35, and 50 cents, ac-
cording to circumstances. The books are printed on good paper, from
large type.
The Religion of Science Library, by its extraordinarily reasonable
price, will bring a large number of important books within the reach
of all readers. The following have already appeared in the series :
No. X. The Religion of Science. By Paul Carus. 25 cents.
2. Three Introductory Lectures on the Science of Thought.
By F. Max MOller. 25 cents.
3. Three Lectures on the Science of Language. By F. Max
MOller. 25 cents.
4. The Diseases of Personality. By Tb. Ridot. 25 cents.
5. The Psychology of Attention. By Th. Ribot. 25 cents.
6. The Psychic Life of Micro-Organisnis. By Alfred Binbt.
25 cents.
7. The Nature of the State. By Paul Carus. 15 cents.
8. On Double Consciousness. By Alfred Binbt. 15 cents.
9. Fundamental Problems. By Paul Carus. Pages, 373. 50c.
10. The Diseases of the Will. By Th. Ribot. 25 cents.
zi. The Origin of l^anguage, and The Logos Theory. By Lud-
WIG Noir6. 15 cents.
12. The Free Trade Struggle in Bngland. By Gen. M. M. Trum-
bull. 25 cents.
13. Wheelbarrow on the Labor Question. 35 cents.
14. The Qospel of Buddha. By Paul Carus. 35 cents.
15. Primer of Philosophy. By Paul Carus. 25 cents.
16. On Memory, and The Specific Energies of the Nervous
System. By Prof. Ewald Hbring. 15 cents.
17. The Redemption of the Brahman. By R. Garbb. 25 cents.
18. An Examination of Weismannism. By G. ]. Romanes. 35c.
19. On Qerminal Selection. By August Weismann. 25 cents.
20. Lovers Three Thousand Years Ago. ByT. A. Goodwin. 15c.
21. Popular Scientific Lectures. By Ernst Mach. 35 cents.
22. Ancient India. Its Language and Religions. By Prop. H.
Oldenberg. 25 cents.
23. The Prophets of Israel. By Prof. C. H. Cornill. 25 cents.
24. Homilies of Science. By Dr. Paul Carus. 35 cents
25. Thoughts on Religion. By G. J. Romanes. 50 cents.
26. The Philosophy of Ancient India. By Richard Garbe. 25c.
The Open Court Publishing Company
LONDON : 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet St., E. C. ^
(324 Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois.) Digitized by VjOOgI
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Digitized by VjOOQIC
A FINE IS INCURRED IF THIS BOOK IS
NOT RETURNED TO THE LIBRARY ON
OR BEFORE THE LAST DATE STAMPED
BELOW.
]
Qi§lti-zed-by
Google
Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11